


Cryptober2020 Laiden edition

by she_who_drank_vodka_with_cats



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: Aiden too good too pure for his own good, Body Horror(?), Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Child Death, Close call, Crack, Demon, Dubious Consent, Geralt cameo, Ghost Stories, Gore, Greg the demon horse - Freeform, Horror, Humor, Jaskier cameo, M/M, Made Up Monsters, Omen of Death, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sex with a monster, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Torture, Trickster - Freeform, Triss Merigold cameo, Vampires, War, Whump, bad substitute for a TV that doesn't even work like a TV in the end, bar brawl with a ghost, cat witcher showing cat behaviour, cryptober2020, curse, fae creature as parasite, immediate resurrection, involuntary monster fucker, legends that are horror stories, little baby monster getting killed, made up folk tales, people burning alive, poisonous plants, regis cameo, severed body parts, short mention of suicide, tags may change with new chapters, talk about parasites
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:20:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 23,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26752738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/she_who_drank_vodka_with_cats/pseuds/she_who_drank_vodka_with_cats
Summary: collections of one shots for cryptober2020 on tumblr  (get a prompt a day and use it to create a monster/character)this has turned into some kind of travel journey with all the horrors Lambert and Aiden have faced on the pathfor a safer experience I wrote into each chapter's summary what you have to expect
Relationships: Aiden/Lambert (The Witcher)
Comments: 108
Kudos: 54





	1. Bones

**Author's Note:**

> this work's Aiden: dark hair, long and wavy, brown skin, green-yellowish eyes, trimmed beard, slightly taller than Lambert, long limbs, less broad shouldered than the wolves, bodytype of a runner, build for speed
> 
> I don't remember how often Aiden's appearance came up in this collection, I think you can still go through most of the works with your own version in mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> creepy monster

The wind carried the stank of decay and Lambert, having the better sense of smell between the two witchers, led them through the forest's shadows towards the source. Little light made it through the close standing fir trees and the Wolf had to tread carefully not to stumble over a root and alert their contract to their presence. 

Aiden noticed the remains before Lambert did and pointed them out to him. Now that he knew where to look, the stark white of the older bones, bleached by time and the elements, was standing out against the dark soil. Flakes of dried blood and rotting flesh were still clinging to the newer addition of the monster's collection. And what an impressive collection it was. The tiny, fragile skeletons of birds lay amongst the sturdy bones of boars. Deer, sheep, dogs, it seemed like the yet unidentified monster they were hunting had no preferences for a certain type of prey. They could even identify the remains of some necrophages and arachnoids. 

What startled Lambert the most was the amount of human bones scattered over the ground. 

"How could the villagers have not noticed this sooner?" he grumbled in disbelief. "Some of the remains must be decades old and this isn't exactly a hidden lair." 

Crouching down, he poked around a larger pile of bones with his dagger while Aiden searched the perimeter for new clues. After all those joined contracts, dividing the work came naturally and no words were needed for them to function as a team. 

"Strange, the bones are old, yet haven't been in this place for very long. This was definitely no fiend," Lambert pondered aloud as the Cat circled back. 

"I don't like this," Aiden frowned and slowly pulled out his silver sword. Trusting his estimation of the situation, Lambert followed suit. "All I could find was one set of footprints, a kind that I have never seen before, and it only leads towards the bones, not away." 

"Do you think it flew away?" Lambert asked with a glance upwards, but immediately shook his head. "There's no sign that something disturbed the trees."

They jumped into a defensive position when a pulse of magic erupted through the air. The ground shook with the sudden force, rattling the scattered remains. The witchers' medallions vibrated violently and they instinctively signed Quen shields to protect themselves from the imminent danger. The bones at their feet began to move, seemingly pulled by an invisible power towards a center right in front of the two men. The bones clinked and crackled as they clashed together to form long limbs and a hunched over torso. There were no features on the creature's massive head, except for a gaping mouth filled with broken off bones, their sharp edges standing in for a predator's deadly teeth. Big yet clumsy hands were already reaching out towards the witchers. 

"What in hell is this?" Aiden shouted over the moving monster's loud rattle. 

"I don't really care as long as we can kill it," Lambert answered as he readied his position for a fight. 

Raising an eyebrow at his partner, Aiden waved his free hand towards the creature. 

"After you!" 


	2. Pumpkin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> folktales about creepy monster

"How much for the wraith?" Lambert asked without preamble. 

The village headman put aside his carving knife and cleaned his hands on a stained rag. The children around him kept happily carving away on their turnips. 

"Beg your pardon?" 

"The night wraith out on your fields," Lambert repeated loud and slowly. He could practically feel Aiden rolling his eyes next to him for being so impatient. "How much are you willing to pay us for killing it?"

"Good men, you will do no such thing!" 

Noticing that the man's aghast politeness only managed to piss Lambert off even more, Aiden stepped in. 

"You shouldn't take this lightly. A wraith is a dangerous creature, it's just a matter of time before the first villager falls victim to it."

"You don't understand. She's not some wraith, she's our Lady Pomedine, the protector of these lands." 

Upon seeing the doubtful looks the two witchers shared, he turned to one of the girls. 

"Tidia, can you please tell these men the story of our Lady Pomedine?" 

The young girl's face turned beet red and she nervously played with her long plait as she quietly talked. 

"There was a bad king and he was very evil and everyone hated him, even the woman who should marry him. Then the woman fell in love with a nice knight and when the king wasn't home, she would light a candle in the window, so the nice knight would come over and they could kiss."

"But then the king found out about them and killed the lady!" shouted an older boy with enthusiasm. "And he took her head and put a candle inside and put it in the window and then the knight came to the castle and the king killed him, too!" 

"Istepen, stop interrupting," the headman told the boy sternly, before nodding for the girl to continue. 

"Then the head of the lady started to fly, but it was her ghost that was moving the head and she killed the king and then the people in the land were happy again," she finished quickly.

"Exactly," the headman praised her. "That is why we carve faces into turnips and pumpkins and light candles inside them. She will possess these heads and protect us from ill-meaning people." 

Lambert's eyebrows were nearly meeting his receding hairline and Aiden scratched his forehead thoughtfully before speaking up. 

"A wraith doesn't care if a person is evil or not, it just kills whatever comes too close."

"I beg to differ," the villager shrugged. "We let our lady judge incriminated people all the time. They have to spend the night outside on the field and if they are still alive when the sun rises, they are innocent. The guilty ones will be punished by our righteous lady's hand."

"The survivors are just lucky," Lambert growled, one hand pinching his nose, the other on his hip. "What if some travelers pass and get killed just because you were too lazy to hold a proper tribunal and kept a murderous wraith around instead?" 

"I am sure they will have deserved it." 

"What about the kids?" the Wolf yelled in frustration. "What if they get curious about your holy lady and walk out onto the fields at night?" 

"We raise our children right," the man answered calmly. "When their hearts are pure, they will come to no harm." 

"Listen, you dickhead-" 

"Lambert," qAiden shushed him with a hand on his shoulder. "It's useless, he won't listen." 

"I have faith in the gods and our protector Lady Pomedine," the headman smiled and picked up his knife again. "I bid you farewell, witchers. May the gods protect you on your path." 

They left the unreasonable man and the village's children to their carving and walked down the main road back to the pasture where they had left their horses to graze. People around them were busy decorating their houses with carved vegetables, the crudely made faces looking grotesque and menacing. 

Waving his hands animatedly, Aiden turned to his partner. 

"We can't just let a wraith be on the loose and kill people. Who knows how many of those judged people have actually been innocent?" 

"There's no contract and even if you kill it for free, I don't think that these people will be very grateful." 

When the Cat didn't respond, Lambert turned his head, then groaned upon seeing Aiden looking at him with pleading eyes and pouting lips. Pushing a hand against the other witcher's face, he shoved him away. 

"No, you stop that! I won't risk my life for a whole village of idiots, especially not if I don't get paid for it." 

Aiden laid his head on Lambert's shoulder and looked through his eyelashes up at him. 

"This doesn't work on me, asshole." 

A mournful whine came from the Cat's throat. 

"Alright, stop it, you little bastard!" Lambert huffed and threw up his hands in surrender. "We will kill the evil spirit and then let the townsfolk chase us away with lit torches and pitchforks. Happy now?" 

"Very," Aiden hummed and threw his arm over the Wolf's shoulder. 

Lambert hated how contagious his grin was. 


	3. Monochrome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> temporary dead character and death as creepy monster

It was supposed to be easy. Follow the map, find the diagrams and get a new armor for Aiden. They were prepared for a fight against archespores and giant centipedes, but not in the quantity they actually encountered. 

Lambert was panting for air. The collision with the wall had knocked the breath out of him, before he had landed equally hard on the ground and it took him a minute to orientate himself. 

Aiden and he had gotten rid of most of the monsters by now, but the repetitive motions had been getting boring and the witchers' muscles had started to tire. Impatient, Lambert had let his guard down and attacked in a more offensive manner. One of the last centipede's strikes had burst his shield and had sent the wolf witcher flying. 

With a curse on his lips, he sat up. Aiden would never let him live this carelessness down. He got to his feet, but had to lean heavily on his sword, when a sudden sting in his chest turned into an explosion of pain and the cave started to spin around him. Lifting a hand to the injury, he felt the end of an archespore's thorn protruding out of him. Without thought, he pulled the prickle out and threw it aside. 

The Cat potion he had drunk before entering the lightless cave had granted him the ability to see in this total darkness, but hid all colours behind a grey veil. His sense of smell however told him that the black liquid sticking to his palm was a mixture of venom and blood. 

Sweating and shivering, he felt his poisoned heart contracting in a seizure and then stopping all together. His knees buckled and gave out beneath him. 

From his position on the ground, he could see Aiden fight on the other side of the cave, a grey speck flitting around the long body of the last centipede. Lambert tried to call for him, but his tongue hung heavy in his mouth and his voice refused to rise. 

Bright dots danced over his vision as he watched his partner burn the archespore with Igni and then turn around to decapitate the giant centipede. 

While the Cat bent over the monster's body, the black and white of the world traded places. The dark cave turned painfully bright and the still burning remains of the archespores were consumed by a flame that seemed to swallow all light around it. 

The inhuman figure standing in Aiden's place pressed a kiss to the fresh kill, then turned its gaze towards Lambert. 

With dread seizing his frozen heart, the wolf watched the inverted version of his partner walk towards him. The warm colour of Aiden's brown hair was now glowing cold and his bronze skin was an ashen grey. As it knelt over the Wolf, Lambert could see white slitted pupils bedded in black eyes. 

The thing that wasn't Aiden put its hands on Lambert's chest, right over his unbeating heart, and leaned its whole weight on top of it. The witcher desperately wanted to fight, but found himself helpless as he lay paralized and defenseless on his back. He gasped for air as his lungs were constricted by the crushing weight, but he couldn't take even one small breath. The phantom kept leaning closer, putting more pressure on him and closing the distance between their faces. Its breath smelled of dry earth and pus and it glared with wide eyes down at Lambert, its slack mouth moving slowly down towards Lambert's lips in a mockery of a kiss. 

The wolf witcher pressed his eyes close. If death would take him now, he didn't want his last thoughts to be consumed by this horror. Let other witchers die bravely facing their demise, Lambert refused to look death in the eye. Instead he conjured up a vision of Aiden, illuminated by the orange glow of the rising sun as he leaned over Lambert to kiss him awake. He felt the calloused palms cradling his face and soft lips pressing against his own. 

His lungs expanded to their full capacity and pain burned through his veins like hot molten silver. 

His eyes shot open with the overwhelming attack on his senses. Hope blossomed in warm waves through his slowly awakening limbs as he saw Aiden, the real Aiden, although still in dull greys, leaning above him. 

The Cat separated their lips and moved his hands to Lambert's chest to press down near his sternum in a rhythmic pace. The pressure stung terribly and Lambert guessed that a few rips had broken under Aiden's desperate reanimation. 

"Aiden," he croaked his partner's name and the man immediately paused his motions and glanced up at Lambert's open eyes.

"Fuck, Lambert!" the Cat nearly sobbed as he pressed his lips back to the Wolf's mouth in a real kiss. 

"How long was I gone?" Lambert asked as they pulled away. He licked his lips and tasted the excessive sweetness of White Honey decoction. Aiden must have given it to him to counter the toxication. 

The older witcher grimaced as he gingerly helped him sit up. 

"Too fucking long." 

"I'll need new armor now, too," Lambert noted without emotion as he observed the hole in his leather jacket. 

"Let's rest a moment before we get the diagrams," Aiden suggested, his voice small, and rested his hand on Lambert's thigh. 

The Wolf laid his own hand over his lover's and held on. He wished he could see Aiden's pear green eyes, but he would have to wait until the Cat potion had no more effect on him and they had left the cave. 

Later, he knew, Aiden would break down from the emotional turmoil and Lambert would feel awful for having put him through this. Right now though, they sat in the numb silence that came with fresh shock, grateful to still be at each other's side. 


	4. Fungi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> carcass with fungi on it

Taking a deep breath, Aiden submerged into the river. The water was cold, but felt good on his too hot skin that was itching with dirt and sweat. He ran his fingers through his hair to make sure that all of the soap was rinsed out, before breaking the surface again. 

Lambert was perched near the shore, dipping their clothes in the current and then beating them against a big flat stone to dislodge the mud clinging to the fabric. After hanging the last piece of cloth to dry near their camp fire, he walked over to his partner. 

"Want me to do your back?" 

They both knew Aiden was flexible enough to reach it himself, but it had become sort of a ritual since he had asked Lambert to do it that very first time. Back then, when nothing had united them except for an uncertain truce, it had been a great sign of trust to turn his back to the other witcher. 

Aiden handed him the soap and turned around with a small smile on his lips. Closing his eyes, he anticipated the nice feeling of his lover's broad palms moving in calming circles over his shoulders, but all Lambert did was proding an area beneath his left shoulder blade, pulling the skin this way and that way. He peered over his shoulder at his hunching partner and hummed a questioning tone. 

"Do you remember that cockatrice we found last week?" Lambert asked out of the blue. 

The Cat remembered clearly. The dead draconid had been rotting away in its own cave in the mountains without any obvious reason for its demise. The decay had been accelerated by some fungi growing on the carcass and feasting on the organic minerals. 

"Yeah, why?" 

"Did you touch it?" 

The cockatrice's remains had fascinated Aiden. The bioluminescent fungi had grown in a web-like pattern beneath the monster's skin, giving it an ethereal glow. In some places, the flesh had burst apart to make way for the sporophore, the fungus' fruiting body. The skeletal structures were as delicate as a rich lady's lacework and gleamed like polished marble. The Cat had wondered if they felt as soft as they looked and had touched them with a tentative fingertip. The little mushroom had broken apart immediately. 

"You had told me not to?" he responded slowly. 

"That's no answer, Aiden," Lambert growled impatiently. "You touched it, didn't you?" 

"And if I did?" the Cat asked, turning around and crossing his arms over his chest. 

"Even though I told you not to." 

"I'm not your subject, you can't order me around." 

"There's an unknown fungi growing on a carcass and you're stupid enough to touch it?" 

They had started talking over each other by now, their voices rising in turn to tune the other one out. 

"So, when you throw a  _ dancing star _ against a  _ northern wind _ to see if they cancel each other out it's scientific curiosity, but when I touch a strange mushroom it's stupidity." 

Aiden pointed accusingly and Lambert threw his hands up in frustration, unable to get rid of his anger in a more physical manner. 

"It's stupid when you die of some mushroom disease."

"Why do you even worry? Witcher's can't catch anything." 

"Your back is glowing like a firefly's arse!" 

"Could be the Cat mutations, you wouldn't know!"

The Cat witcher reflexively catched the soap flinged at his chest, while Lambert stomped back to their camp. 

"Get dressed," he barked over his shoulder, already fighting to get his leg into his still clammy trousers. "We're gonna find a healer, favourably a sorceress even. You're not gonna die from some monster fungi!"

Aiden rolled his eyes, yet obeyed. Lambert was too stubborn to budge when he fretted like this and, though he would never admit it out loud, now that he thought about all the sweating and itching he had endured all day, he began to worry, too. 

Though he wouldn't be surprised if this really was his end. Curiosity killed the cat after all. 


	5. Hooves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joey Batey's d&d monster Greg

Aiden was still staring at the hooves. He didn't know why, the hooves were the most normal part of the abomination standing in front of him. Who would have thought that after a century on the path there were still creatures out there that could leave the experienced Cat witcher speechless?

The hooves were the base of the strong body of a healthy stallion, the dark coat shining like liquid tar. The resemblance with the animal stopped however where the horse's neck should begin. Six arms were attached to the elongated torso, each three-fingered hand twitching with nervous energy. On a thin, almost fragile seeming neck sat the deformed head. The only comparison Aiden could think of was the form of an overgrown potato. It had neither a mouth, a nose or ears, just a multitude of eyes in different sizes and colours scattered across its visage that stared unblinkingly in several directions at once. 

"Who's your friend, Lambert?" the bard standing next to the demon horse chirped cheerfully. 

"I just wanted to ask you the same," the Wolf witcher replied stunned. 

"Oh, excuse my manners. Witchers, this is my old friend Greg. Greg, these are friends of Geralt, Lambert and…" 

"Aiden," the Cat finally croaked out. 

Goosebumps crawled along his back as all eyes seemed to focus on him and Lambert in turn and a deep and booming voice resounded inside of his head through telepathic powers. 

"A pleasure to meet you." 

"That's the creepiest son of a bitch I have ever seen," Lambert blurted out and Aiden punched his arm, because, sure he was right, but said creepy son of a bitch was standing right in front of them. 

"Charming as ever, wolf," Jaskier commented with a huff. 

"We'd love to chat, but we're on a schedule," Aiden excused them hastily, not taking his eyes off the docile demon. "There's that contract about the- well, we have a contract and need to go." 

The bard perched up. 

"Oh, can we join you on your adventure? It is about time I sing about someone who isn't the white wolf."

"Fuck, no!" 

Lambert was already pushing Aiden's shoulder, willing him to move. 

"Too dangerous. Maybe next time. Tell Geralt my greetings next time you see him." 

As they hurried down the road, they could hear Jaskier picking on his lute in the fading distance and a graveling voice humming a tune along. The clip-clop of the hooves resonated in a fitting rhythm.

"I'll see this in my nightmares tonight," Lambert shuddered, when they couldn't hear the other pair anymore.

"I won't be able to sleep at all," groaned Aiden. 

"What if he brings it to Kaer Morhen next winter?" 

"At least we won't have to worry about how Vesemir will react upon seeing a cat witcher, when he is distracted by that thing." 

"There's one silver lining," Lambert sighed. "His face will be priceless."


	6. Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> baby monster dies

Lambert skimmed through a pile of books and parchments, raising dust and spooking spiders. They had been searching through the ruins of a mage's burned out home for hours now and had found no sufficient clue about what they were dealing with. 

The contract was on a red eyed demon that haunted the crumbled structure at night and terrified the villagers. They had credited the evil with many deaths and everyone had chipped in to employ an expert to get rid of it. To the witchers' frustration, the description of the monster was as good as non-existent, the red glowing eyes the only pointer the witnesses could give them, and the victims’ deaths all seemed unrelated and irrelevant. 

Musing that the deceased mage must have left behind some incomplete experiment, Lambert and Aiden tried to figure out what they were dealing with by investigating the area after sunset, but no demon or wraith or other monster had shown up so far. 

Giving up on the writing desk, the Wolf witcher walked over to the laboratory's fireplace and prodded the charred debris with his dagger, hoping to find some secrets the former resident didn't want to share. To his surprise, the disturbance caused tiny sparks to jump from the charcoal. He pushed the outer layer of scorched logs of wood to the side and found the ember beneath still glowing hot. 

"Did you notice someone leave when we arrived?" he asked Aiden, concentrating his senses in case whoever had set the fire was still around. 

"Would have told you," the Cat answered distractedly while inspecting the insides of an old chest. 

"The fireplace is still warm," the younger witcher explained. He held his hand over the smouldering embers in demonstration, then snatched it back when suddenly the heat increased and the charcoal moved as if flowing on a coat of molten lava. 

Detecting magic, his medallion hummed against his leather armor until the motion in the fireplace stopped. 

"What the hell? The fire just moved." 

Having felt his own medallion's vibrations, Aiden joined him and leaned over Lambert's shoulder, who poked the logs once more with his dagger. Again, the embers broke smoothly apart like volcanic rocks on a bed of magma. Aiden's brow furrowed while he contemplated over the low burning wood, which slowly began to form short limbs and soft facial features. Two dots of red eyes blazing like hot coals looked up at them. The fire's light reflected in sparkles in Aiden's own eyes as they widened with recognition and delight. 

"An ifrit!" 

"A what?" 

"And such a small one," he cooed and, to Lambert's shock, reached forward with both hands to grab the thing. 

Hissing, the rabbit-sized creature rolled into a ball and cast out a darting flame. 

Aiden yelped startled and jumped backwards, pressing his burned fingers into his lap and cursing under his breath. 

"You fucking idiot!" Lambert shouted and the little fire elemental withdrew completely. "Why would you touch it?" 

He took hold of Aiden's wrists and lifted his hands to check the injuries. 

"It's a baby," the Cat reasoned with a low whine in his voice. "I wanted to hold it."

"It's a hazard and probably the reason why this whole house burned to the ground. I'm pretty sure it's the demon the villagers keep seeing at night." 

While Lambert was still dotting over his hands, Aiden's attention had already turned back to the ifrit. 

"The mage must have conjured it but couldn't control it. All this time it's been all alone here. Can we -" 

"No!" Lambert barked before the other man could finish his thought. 

"It could help us hunt. A royal griffin would stand no chance against a walking fire," Aiden tried to sell his case, but even his pouting lips couldn't sway Lambert this time. 

"It would burn the whole valley down. It already burned your hands, Aiden." 

"Accidentally, it's not the elemental's fault that I frightened it."

"And accidentally it will destroy a whole town and kill many innocent people." Letting go of his partner's hands, the Wolf let out a deep sigh. 

"Look," he argued in a soft tone. "We can't take it with us, it's too dangerous. But neither can we leave it here. It's only a matter of time before it becomes more bold or more desperate and starts wandering off."

Aiden nodded sadly. 

"Yeah, I get it."

"Good." 

Lambert unsheathed his silver sword, then paused. 

"Do you want to wait outside?" 

"Just do it quickly," Aiden urged, then watched as the Wolf witcher thrust his blade into the small ifrit's pulsating body. 

Slowly, the low fire extinguished and the embers' glow went out. With the fading red light, the night seemed to turn a bit colder. 


	7. Scream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> torture

“When I was a little boy,” the leader of the hunting party drawled while unsheathing a dagger and holding it over the campfire’s dancing flames. “There was a grey cat living in our barn.” 

Lambert didn’t give a shit about the bastard’s life story and he tried to convey this with his eyes. He’d rather have given a snarky comment, but they had gagged him as well as bound up his hands and legs, his arms raised over his head and fastened to a thick branch above him. Aiden was tied in a similar manner to a tree opposite of him.

The rogue group of witch hunters was far away from Novigrad. Lambert didn’t know why they had been cast away from the city, but it told a lot that not even those assholes back there wanted anything to do with the men holding them captive. 

Bored with not finding any witches to burn, the Righteous Hunters, as they had introduced themselves, had honed in on a new target. The white wolf. And somehow they believed Lambert to know Geralt’s current location. All the punching and slicing was futile however, for he had no fucking clue in what part of the continent his brother was prowling around at the moment.

“It was a very docile little thing. It purred when my sister petted it and it purred when my father fed it meat scraps.” 

Glancing over at his partner, Lambert could see Aiden roll his eyes in annoyance. He huffed out a muffled laugh, absolutely agreeing with the sentiment. He wished that the man would hurry up with his ranting and get on with the torture. The sooner the hunters' bloodlust had been stilled and they'd grown bored at the sight of a tormented witcher, the sooner he could cast Igni to burn his bonds and free himself. He would probably scorch his own hands in the process, which would weaken him during a fight, therefore he had to wait until most of their opponents had retired for the night and only the watchmen stayed alert. 

“It purred when my mother let it sit in her lap, it purred while sleeping near the hearth during winter and it purred when I doused it in oil and set it on fire.” 

Lambert began to wonder if this had also been the man’s application to join the guild of the witch hunters. These fuckers surely loved to set things on fire.

“I later learned that cats purr just as well when they are in distress as when they feel at ease.” 

The leader rose and strolled over to Aiden’s side, the heated dagger spinning lazily between his fingers. Lambert knew exactly what part of the interrogation would come next and steeled himself for a very different kind of agony. 

“Tell me, Wolf,” the man who claimed to be human, yet performed most inhuman acts, rhetorically asked Lambert. “When I hurt the Cat witcher, will he moan like he’s being fucked good?” 

Seeking for Aiden’s eyes, Lambert found his partner already looking at him. Determination was written over his features and his gaze burned with emotion. While Lambert couldn’t hold back his groan of pain whenever the hunters’ knives had drawn new blood from his skin, Aiden had stayed unmoved, a silent vigil, as rigid as a rock that didn’t care for the storm’s rage. Now it was Lambert’s turn to show the same amount of faith. 

Seizing Aiden’s hair with his fist, the witch hunter forced the Cat’s head back.

“Let’s find out,” he announced and pressed the hot gleaming blade against the witcher’s neck. 

Lambert stayed silent while Aiden screamed.


	8. Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> creepy monster

“They just keep inventing more gods and they’re not even creative about it. Peasants just see something the don't understand and claim it’s the doings of some higher power. Along comes a person who has picked up a book once in their lifetime and explains how things occur naturally and they break out the torches and pitchforks. Take the Church of the Eternal Fire, its followers are so scared of sorceresses and mages, simply 'cause they don’t understand magic, though it’s all just higher natural philosophy. The leaders of those churches are the only ones to gain something from religion and that’s power.” 

Lambert’s been ranting nonstop since they had walked past a group of worshippers bathing beneath a waterfall and praising Renos, the deity of water. One well-meaning believer had invited the witchers to join them and wash their sins away. The Wolf had bristled, spat out some chosen curses and stalked away. The beginning of rain had only soured his mood further and now, sitting beneath a protruding cliff and resting by the warm fire, he seemed to have no other diversion but to rail against the world. 

Aiden was seriously considering putting his freshly sharpened hunting knife to good use. 

"What’s it about the cleansing of sin anyway? We’re witchers, our sole existence is a sin in their eyes and I refuse to atone for being alive. What's some water supposed to do about it? I've bathed and the world still resents me. Cleaning with water, cleaning with fire, what’s next? Worshipping the earth and rolling around in the dirt? A bunch of ignorant assholes, all of them. If you want to believe in some deity, at least pick something impressive, not some stupid water god.”

Usually, Aiden was pretty good at tuning out Lambert’s angry, pointless rants, but between the younger witcher’s grouching, the rain’s bickering and the fire’s crackle, he couldn’t hear his own thoughts. Before even making the conscious decision, he found himself on his feet. 

Pausing in his nagging, Lambert looked around, trying to find out what could have jolted his friend out of his reclined position. 

“What is it?”

“I’m gonna run in the rain,” Aiden declared and now that he had voiced the previously intangible need, he could feel his body thrum with an overwhelming amount of energy. 

Lambert frowned at him, the raised eyebrow conveying exactly what he thought about the idea.

“You’ll be soaked to the bone within a minute. I won't listen to you complaining all day when you freeze in your wet clothes."

Letting the hypocrisy slide, the Cat started undressing and Lambert's second eyebrow joined the first near his hairline. 

"Can't complain about wet clothes if your clothes don't get wet," Aiden shrugged and dropped his breeches. 

Holding his palms up, he stepped from beneath the rocky cliff and out into the rain. 

The water was cold and raised goosebumps on his skin. His hair grew heavy and stick flat to his head within seconds. The wind picked up and bit into his flesh with icy teeth. It felt fantastic. Closing his eyes, he threw his head back and stick out his tongue, catching droplets and tasting the fresh sweetness. 

"Come back, you lunatic," he could hear Lambert shout behind him, his voice vibrating with restraint laughter. 

"Come out, you dull fuck," Aiden yelled back and darted off. 

He ran upwards the mountain path near which they held camp, far enough that he barely couldn't see their shelter anymore. Then he turned and jogged back at a less hurried pace as to not slip on the steep and muddy trail. 

A broad grin stretched over his face as he saw Lambert getting rid of his own clothes. The Wolf waited beneath the rocks until Aiden ran past the alcove to join him. He waddled with quick steps along, cursing whenever he stepped onto a sharp stone. 

"We'll freeze our balls off," he hissed, holding his arms bend close to his chest to gain some warmth. 

His teeth were clattering and his cheeks flushed. The pomade in his hair has quickly been washed away by the shower, leaving it in a wild disarray. He blinked rapidly against the droplets that gathered in his clumped lashes and then trickled into his eyes. 

Aiden's heart soared at the sight. 

"I'll race you to the cottonwood and back to camp," he challenged and then added with a wink "Then we can warm up by the fire."

"You're on," Lambert smirked, then pushed Aiden's shoulder as he dashed away. 

The Cat slipped on the wet ground, but managed to stay on his feet. With a cuss and a laugh, he followed the other witcher close on his heels. 

When he catched up with the Wolf, he tried to slow him down by grasping his arms and holding on to his midriff. In turn, Lambert tried to trip him up and soon they stumbled sideways to the ground, their limbs entangled. Aiden kicked out his legs to push Lambert off, but the Wolf was already rolling out of the way and swiftly jumping to his feet. 

Aiden stayed behind for a moment, enjoying the view of his lover's glistening backside wiggling as he ran. Maybe they didn't need the rain to wash away their own sons, but to get rid of the dirt that other people threw at them.

Turning his focus back to the tree they had agreed to be their marker, he took up speed again. He couldn't let Lambert win without a good fight. 

A lightning bolt illuminated the sky and Aiden catched the glimpse of a shadow standing next to the tree. Fear gripped him as thunder exploded over their heads. 

The figure didn't have a body. It was only outlined by the rain falling onto it with a splatter and then gathering in the open space, as if captured in a transculent vessel. Small rivers streamed down the sides of its head like long flowing hair. It raised a dripping arm forward and slithered towards them, the mud on the ground mixing with the water that build up its base, tainting its lower body. 

"Lambert!" Aiden shouted in warning, but the Wolf had already noticed the creature himself. 

The younger witcher came to a slippery halt and turned around to sprint back to their camp. They both were running full speed now, not caring about the stones slicing into their soles or the shortness of their breaths burning in their lungs. The bright campfire danced like a spark of hope in front of them, while they heard the creature's sloshing getting closer behind. 

Aiden was the first to arrive at the alcove. He threw himself towards their weapons, gripping his own silver sword in his favoured hand and throwing Lambert's towards him to catch. 

They turned around in unison, their postures ready to counter an attack. The figure had grown into a massive form with an ever changing outline that surged at them like a wave on the point of breaking. It toppled over, rushing at the witchers, who held up their swords in defense, and splashed over them. 

The force nearly brought the men down on their knees. The dry camp flooded with water, their clothes and bedrolls soaking through, while the fire went out with a sizzle before giving out white smoke instead of warmth and light. Everything was silent except for the splatter of the rain outside of the alcove

Staying alert, Aiden and Lambert looked around them, but no further attack followed. Whatever had chased them had only been playing with them and was now gone. All that was left of the creature were puddles of rain water on the ground.

Aiden pointed at the wet spots with his sword. 

"Are you going to explain this or should I start praying?" 


	9. Feather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> creepy monster

The feather was long, dark and beautiful. Light reflected off it in a golden hue and the fine barbs felt as soft as silk. 

"It's a griffin's," Aiden declared confidently, claiming that they should ride into the next town and see if there's a contract on it. 

"It's not," Lambert disagreed and assured the other witcher that it was safe to camp out in the woods. 

"Then it's a royal griffin's or maybe even an arch griffin's. Gods, don't let it be an arch griffin, I hate cleaning acid out of the armor."

"It's not any kind of griffin," the Wolf repeats, pointing the father's thin tip at his partner. "Griffins nest on mountains or other High areas and hunt in the lowlands."

"What else could it be from?" 

"A raven or something, I don't know." 

Groaning, Aiden snatched the back the cause of their discussion and stalked around their little camp. 

"Have you ever seen a raven shimmering like gold, you moron?" 

"It could be a robin's for all I care, alright?" Lambert exclaimed and dropped back onto his bed roll, ready to dismiss the Cat's unfounded worrying by simply falling asleep. "I don't give a fuck about birds, but I know my monsters and that's not one of them. Whatever lost this feather is not dangerous and it won't have a contract on its head."

He cushioned his head on his arms and settled in, when his eyes catched movement in the foliage above him. 

Big, reflecting eyes were looking unblinkingly down at him. Dark feathers covered a lithe body that was dangling upside down from a branch, a pair of clawed feet holding on tight. The creature pulled back its thin lips and showed several rows of sharp teeth with the snarl. 

"Aiden," Lambert hushed slowly so as not to startle the thing above him.

Knowing that tone of voice, Aiden slowly pulled out his silver sword before he even had followed the other man's gaze. 

"I know my monsters, he says" he mocked Lambert as the creature began to hiss at them. "It's nothing dangerous, he says." 

The winged nightmare let go off the branch and fell down towards Lambert who rolled out of the way in the last second. 

Seizing his sword, the Wolf witcher leaped to his feet close to his partner, pointing his weapon at the monster. 

"We'll, I was right," Lambert insisted. "It is not a griffin!" 


	10. Spoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> horror, severed body parts, mention of cannibalism

The house was well cared for. Herbs and flowers grew in patches in the front yard that was surrounded by a small fence. Inside, the floor was swept and the kitchen supplies stood sorted in orderly rows on the rack. 

The inhabitant, who didn't seem to be home right now, had his latest project lying on a workbench in a corner. The leather had already been cut into form and needed to be stitched together next to turn into a jerkin. 

The house would have seemed normal enough, if it weren't for the two witchers' heightened senses. Lambert had been looking for someone to sell him leather scraps to mend his trousers with and the town's merchant had sent him here. Upon entering, he had immediately been suspicious of the smell of decay. Aiden had quickly found the hidden hatch that led down into the cellar. 

Downstairs, they found another workbench, this one occupied by the body parts of a young man. His skin had been flayed and stretched over a frame to dry. The thighs hung like dry-cured ham from the ceiling. The poor lad's severed head sat cut in the middle on the worktop, like two bowls, the upper half scrapped empty, the other half still filled with flesh and cartilage. 

"Should we alert the townsfolk or just kill this sick bastard?" Lambert asked Aiden, who was opening a trunk and found it full with shaved off hair. 

Looking at the many different colours, the Cat witcher came easily to his decision. 

"Today we're going to do it your way." 

Lambert hummed an approving note and looked over the workbench once more. He picked up a spoon that lay next to the halved head and showed it to Aiden. 

"This is real silver." 

The other witcher cocked his head. 

"And?" 

"We can sell it to a merchant," the Wolf shrugged. "People pay a lot for silverware." 

"It's probably been used to scoop out brains!" Aiden said perplexed, his face twisted with disgust. 

"The merchant doesn't know that."

"You can't kill a cannibal and then get rich on his murder tools."

"Says who?" 

"Says morals!" Aiden blurted and flicked his finger against Lambert's forehead. "Put it back, you nasty."

Scowling, the Wolf witcher rubbed his forehead, but did as he was told and laid the silver spoon back down onto the worktop. 

"Fine, but I'll raid the guy's alcohol supplies later. You can't make vodka out of people."

Before Aiden could answer, they heard the front door upstairs opening. 

They looked at each other, a quiet conversation occurring between them just with their eyes, then pulled their steel swords and silently took the stairs. 


	11. Deep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> creepy monster

Swiping at the mosquitos, Lambert cursed the whole world and this shit swamp especially. At this rate, he'd die of blood loss from too fucking many mosquito bites before finding and killing the foglet like the villagers had asked him to. 

The worst thing was that there wasn't even anyone around to complain to. As always, Aiden had refused the offer to accompany Lambert to Kaer Morhen and had taken the road south to spend the winter in warmer regions, while Lambert was heading north, back to the blue mountains. Once again, he wished he had turned around and followed the Cat. He'd rather be in scenic Toussaint right now and have bruxas thirst for his blood instead of mosquitos, at least those were nice to look at and he could fend those off with his sword. But he couldn't leave the other wolves alone to their winterly misery, especially not Vesemir. As far as Lambert knew, the old wolf spent most of the year alone at the keep, trying to mend the cracks in the foundations of an already collapsed institution. It was the younger witcher’s duty to help raise the old man's blood pressure now and then to keep him alive. 

A strange sound had him pause in his swearing. He stopped walking, the squelching of his boots too loud to his sensitive ears, and cocked his head to listen closely. 

The insects kept buzzing around him, frogs croaked in a rhythmic pattern and far away a black grouse called out for a mate. Then there was the anguished crying again. It was hard to say if it was a human baby in distress or simply a farmer's lamb that had lost its flock. Nevertheless, the screaming was gut-wrenching. 

Lambert tried to ignore it, it wasn't his concern and witchers don't meddle in other people's affairs, no matter what kind of reputation Geralt was getting them. The sound, however, pierced his ears and squeezed his heart. 

It wouldn't hurt to investigate, right? Maybe the foglet was the reason for all the commotion and had been lured by the noise. Anyway, searching for the origin of the wails was as good a start to find his monster as any. 

After some wading through the mutt, he came across a hole from which the crying seemed to be emitted. It was wide enough for a warhorse to fit in and so deep that Lambert couldn't see the ground in its dark maw. The smell of decay rose from it, making it clear that something dead was rotting in its depth. Maybe a parent that had fallen into the hole with their child and died on impact? But why would someone bring out their baby into the swamp in the first place? 

Maybe it was a godling with a bad sense of humor playing a trick on him. Or it was a godling that was actually in trouble and needed help.

The witcher shouted into the pit, but didn't get an answer. Only the sorrowful wailing prevailed. 

Snapping a limb off from one of those sorry excuses of a tree, Lambert built a torch with the use of some dry bandages and oil. He lighted it with Igni, before lying flat next to the edge and holding the bright flame into the dark abyss. It was still hard to make anything out and the Wolf wondered for a moment if he should drop the torch to find out how deep the hole really was, but he feared that it could strike whatever was down there. 

When his mutated eyes finally adjusted, he recoiled. 

A few feet down, the dark soil turned into pink flesh. Teeth jutted out from the sides like pointed stakes in a pitfall and the maw pulsated like an open throat swallowing. 

Like a brick to the head, Kaer Morhen's lessons about the aenmarw, or wailing grave as the common folk called it, came back to him. The books described a subterranean living serpent that uttered a sound indistinctive enough to call out to many different kinds of creatures. Some thought it to be a willing mate, others heard the turmoil of an easy prey and such as Lambert were looking to help. They all would fall into the trap and be swallowed and digested by the archaic monster. 

Stepping back from the hole's edge, Lambert let the torch drop into it. The creature's howling paused, then the earth began to quiver as the gullet closed around the flame and darkness returned. 

The witcher stepped carefully around the monster's maw and continued his search for the foglet, this time keeping a closer look on the ground. As he walked away, the desperate crying started up again. Lambert went back to cursing a world cruel enough to use people's good hearts against them. 


	12. Buried

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> unearthing a vampire

"You keep saying that I had dubious acquaintances, now I'm standing in the middle of nowhere to dig out a friend of yours?"

"Shut up, Lambert, and make yourself useful."

Reluctantly, the youngest wolf picked up the shovel they had borrowed from a farm close by and jumped into the considerably big hole Geralt had already excavated. 

"Remind me again how you know this is the right place," Lambert grunted as he started shoveling. 

"The raven showed me," was Geralt's cryptic answer.

Lambert stopped again and glared at his brother. 

"Are you playing at being Yenn's lapdog again?" 

"This isn't for Yenn," Geralt replied unbothered, steadily scooping more and more earth. "I told you, I am looking for a friend."

"I don't want to be the bearer of bad news-" 

"You love telling people bad news." 

"-but your friend is probably already dead and rotting. Looking at his corpse, why do you want to do that to yourself?" 

"He's not dead," the white wolf shrugged as if people got buried alive and just walked away from that everyday. 

Lambert was about to disagree, when a third voice startled him. 

"Geralt, dear friend, is that you?" came the muffled call from within the earth. 

The older witcher chuckled, both at his overly polite friend and at Lambert's flailing limbs. 

"Yes, Regis, it's me and my brother Lambert." 

"What the fuck, Geralt!" Lambert declared and went back to digging with new fervor. 

"What happened?" asked Geralt loud enough for the man burrowed beneath to hear. He was still so goddamn calm about the situation that Lambert wanted to hit him over the head with his shovel. 

"Ah, I'm terribly sorry to be a bother. It was actually quite heedless of me to let a carnscoia get the better of me. You see, I was in deep thought, philosophising about the world and its inhabitants as you know I am wont to do, when the creature just seized me and buried me to enjoy as a later meal, like an overgrown squirrel would do with a walnut."

"Don't worry, we'll have you out in a moment." 

"You're goddamn lucky! Carnscoia don't simply  _ seize _ people," Lambert barked, frustrated with the two men's unperturbed conversation despite the horrid situation. "They usually kill their prey before burying it."

"Oh, it did! It was an awfully painful experience. It took me hours to regenerate all my intestines," the courteous voice shared cheerfully. 

Throwing the shovel to the side and putting his hands on his hips, Lambert glared at his brother, wordlessly demanding an honest explanation. 

"Regis is a higher vampire," Geralt finally sighed. 

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" 

"Please don't worry, Lambert," piped up the higher vampire from within his current grave. "I don't mean you or your brother any harm." 

"Well, that's fucking reassuring!" the younger witcher shouted at the dirt, then turned back to Geralt, who had a pleading look on his face. "You asked me to help exhume a higher vampire?" 

"He's my friend," the white wolf emphasised. "I trust him." 

Lambert cursed loudly and paced in a circle in the confines of their hole. 

"You won't tell Vesemir about this, right?" 

Stopping in his tracks, Lambert turned to his brother. 

"Fuck, no!" he exclaimed, thinking about his own friend he would never tell Vesemir about. The old wolf would probably get a heart attack if he knew that his youngest charge was frequently accompanied on the path by a cat witcher. 

With a sigh, he bent over to pick up his shovel again and continued digging up the Geralt's vampire. 

"You could have told me sooner, though." 

A small smile crept onto the older witcher's face and instead of answering he chose to simply rejoin Lambert in his efforts. 

It didn't take much longer until Regis yelped in pain, one of the shovels having connected with his back. However, none of the men were worried about the wound, since it would heal quickly enough. This was nothing next to the deadly bite of the carnscoia. 

Using their hands, the witchers kept unearthing more of the vampire, until Regis could finally climb out of his too early grave. 

"Thank you for coming to my help," he expressed his gratitude while brushing dirt from his clothes. 

Geralt pulled the man into a tight hug, uncaring about the earth that stained his clothes now, too. 

Smiling bashfully, the vampire turned towards Lambert and held out his hand. 

"I wish the circumstances were less embarrassing, but I'm glad to finally meet one of Geralt's brothers. I have heard so much about you."

"Good to meet you, too," Lambert accepted the offered hand. "Though I have never heard a damn word about you." 

"How about we share a drink, the wine is on me of course, and I will answer every question you can think of," Regis offered.

"Sounds good to me," Geralt declared and pointed hopeful eyes at Lambert. 

"Sure, why not," Lambert shrugged and didn't even complain when his older brother thumped his back with a little too much enthusiasm. 

Maybe, he thought to himself, there was one family member who he could tell about his Cat one day.


	13. Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dubious consent

Lambert was here! 

Aiden was ecstatic and vibrated with happiness. 

The Wolf had a change of heart and had followed him to Toussaint and now he was here with Aiden in this tavern's shabby little guest room, falling onto the lumpy mattress with him. And just like that, the small shit hole had turned into the best place on the whole continent. 

Every touch felt as soothing as a cool balm on feverish skin, every kiss was another stoke to the burning desire the Cat felt. Lambert tasted him like a starving man, pressed him into the bed and took what he needed without any restraint. 

Pleased to give himself to his lover, Aiden submitted to the pleasure Lambert brought him. He closed his eyes with a moan as the other man held down his wrists over his head and bounced in his lap. The long fingers in his hair scratched along his scalp and pulled on the strands forcefully. A soft palm stroke down his chest and teased his nipples into peaks. Another one touched his cheek and then roughly pushed his head to the side. He was ready to tumble over the edge, when a coarse hand closed around his throat and squeezed until he saw stars exploding behind his closed eyelids. 

There, on the peak of his passion, he could suddenly see it clearly. 

There were too many hands. 

His eyes shot open and he started struggling, as another hand pressed down onto his mouth and nose, the skin a gleaming black and covered with bristles. Eight eyes, still in the warm golden colour of honey just like Lambert's, glared down at him. The creature opened those plump pink lips, swollen from kissing, and unhinged its jaw to make way for its mandibles. With its pincer-like mouth gaping wide, the monster leaned over Aiden, ready to devour his head after the act of coupling was done. 

Amplifying its efforts to get the witcher to come, the cross between a giant arachnoid and the youngest wolf sped up its movements and squeezed around his shaft. It made a hissing noise as its features kept morphing further. The soft belly turned into a hard exoskeleton's plates, the numerous limbs grew thinner and elongated. The fingers on the hands that had held him down melted together into thick stubs covered with barbs that bore into his flesh. 

Aiden ripped his wrist free, pain shot through his arm and blood splattered onto the sheets. Screaming in pain, the pang in his chest being even worse than his torn open arm, he signed Igni and cast is straight at the thing's head. 

The creature shrank back, angrily snapping its pinchers as it fell off the bed and scrambled over the floor. 

With a dart, Aiden jumped to the other side of the room and grabbed his silver sword. In one fluid movement, he unsheathed the weapon, swinged around and decapitated the beast. 

Later, after he had gotten dressed and had burned the creature on a field behind the tavern, he was alone in the shabby little guest room and sat on the lumpy mattress. 

Right then, he hated Toussaint with a passion. 


	14. Reef

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ¿cute? monster

After weeks of traveling, Aiden had made it to the coast and he could barely believe his eyes. 

The coast fucking sucked. 

Dead seaweed lay in rows of brown clumps along the shore and emitted a foul rotting smell. Crabs' bleached out shells and pincers were scattered over the sand, whitening the beach with their ghostly pale bodies. Firm orange foam was rocked by the waves, carried down into the ocean by the river from the dye-works upstream, and a group of angrily screaming seagulls was fighting over a dead fish. 

Aiden had been moving from town to town nonstop, working hard on contracts and drinking harder afterwards, just to find some sliver of distraction. But wherever he went and whatever he did, it was all dull and awful and only reminded him of how much he missed a travel companion. How much he missed Lambert. 

He picked up one of the bigger pebbles and threw out his arm to let the stone skip over the water just like his Wolf had once showed him. The flat stone flew in a straight line, wildly spinning around itself, and was at once swallowed by the sea. Aiden tried again, his wrist slack and his technique precise, but every stone immediately broke the surface and sank into the water instead of jumping further. 

Frustrated and angry, he began to forcefully throw every pebble around him into the sea, then grabbed fistfuls of sand and tossed them into the wind. He screamed at the ocean and the waves roared back, moving closer and stepping on his feet. Another seagull flew past his head and yelled at him. He shouted back until his face turned red and his throat burned with overuse. 

Exhausted, he fell to his knees, the water splashing around him, as he let himself drop unceremoniously. He licked his lips and tasted salt. 

The waves kept coming and moving past, until the sea was around him, holding him in a wet embrace. It brought the pebbles Aiden had thrown with it. Or did the small stones come back on their own? They swarmed him and tried to jump up into his lap like tiny excited puppies. 

Too tired to worry, he watched them for a moment, then began to carefully touch them and play with them when they reacted in favour. He was so distracted by their childlike energy, that he didn't notice the other presence, until it emerged from the water and startled him enough to fall backwards into the waves. 

The creature held up its scaled palm in a calm gesture and though it made no sounds, Aiden would swear he could hear it laugh. 

It heaved its massive body through the shallow water and stopped close to the witcher, its beady eyes curiously gazing at him. 

And Aiden stared back in awe, taking in the colourful corals growing on its back and the softness of the seagrass that covered its thick skin. A colony of tiny snails clinged to the side of the pointed face and a crab scurried over its shoulder to hide in the crevices between the corals. The stones in Aiden's lap rushed towards it and greeted it ecstatically. 

The sea creature's chest heaved, before it lowered its body deeper into the water and took a big breath through its gills,never taking its eyes off the Cat. A webbed dark hand reached out and carefully touched Aiden's face with the tip of the finger right beneath his eye. 

Aiden wiped the wetness beneath both of his eyes away and gave the thing a quivering smile. With a gurgling sound, it bumped its head against his chest, making him laugh for real this time. He returned the friendly gesture by patting its rough head. It felt like caressing a porous boulder. 

Satisfied that the man's mood had improved, the creature threw itself back into the deeper water. A large fin waved goodbye as it swam away, taking the rolling waves of the sea with it and soon Aiden was kneeling alone on the wet sand. 

He sniffled, his skin had grown cold and he was drained from the emotional turmoil, but he felt a new impulse urging him to move on, telling him that he can move on. 

Taking a deep breath, he picked himself up and made his way back to the road that would lead him to the next town, to the next contract, to the next day after day until he found his way back home.

Behind him, the seagulls laughed as they soared over the blue sky. 


	15. Cinnamon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> old Greek mythical creature (really, look it up)

They were passing through Carreras, when they smelled the alluring aroma of spices and Lambert followed his nose to lead them towards the right merchant. 

The trader with connections to Zerrikania wheedled his customers with a silver tongue. He knew the worth of his commodities and knew even better how to sell them. 

Interested in the cinnamon, Aiden pouted when he heard the price and gestured at Lambert to keep going. Taking one look at his partner's disappointed face, the Wolf refused to move. 

"That's way too much for a small pouch of spices," he yaped at the merchant. 

"But Master witcher, you surely know that this special spice is very difficult to gather and therefore more expensive than most," the man bemoaned with an overly polite smile. 

"I don't know," Lambert stated with a firm voice, earning a sidelong glance from Aiden. "Explain."

The merchant was visibly getting nervous, faced with two witchers at once. He peered over to the city watch, who were keeping a close eye on the market place and especially on the menacing looking witchers. 

"The cinnamon trees grow in a far away land-" 

"Zerrikania, my friend's been there," the wolf witcher interrupted and pointed at the Cat, knowing that most people had problems with placing Aiden's darker tone of skin. 

"Then he will know about the winged serpents that guard the trees."

Crossing his arms and taking on a scowl, Aiden tried to support whatever Lambert was up to, without getting involved himself. He had never been to Zerrikania and didn't want to expose his partner's lie by saying the wrong thing. 

"The natives call them cinnamon birds, though they have more in common with the draconids we know," the merchant continued, retelling the stories he had been told by his own dealers. "They collect the cinnamon sticks from the trees and use them to construct their nests. The cinnamolgus is so dangerous that the natives have to use certain tricks to outsmart them. They sacrifice an old cow or a lame horse and use the meat to lure the beasts out of their nests, that's part of why it is as expensive as a large farm animal. While the beasts are away, weighted arrows are used to shoot the nests down. The gatherers have to hurry to gather the sticks before the cinnamolgus comes back."

Lambert pursed his lips and clicked his tongue. 

"I hope you did seek out a healer about your verbal diarrhea." 

"Excuse me?" 

"There's no such thing as a cinnamolgus, the very name is ridiculous. Did you come up with it on the spot?" 

People stopped at the sales cart and watched the scene. Some of them commented on the overpriced spices, while others endorsed the story of the cinnamon beast. 

The merchant's face was turning red and he spluttered indignantly. 

"They're most certainly real!"

The witcher pointed with an exaggerated glare at himself and his friend. 

"You wanna tell us, two seasoned witchers, one even acquainted with Zerrikania, what monsters are real and what not? The story about the cinnamon birds had been made up by the traders to raise the price on their goods."

The small crowd around them started whispering loudly and the merchant looked around flustered at the many people witnessing the argument. 

The Wolf smirked as he leaned closer. 

"Let's agree on the price of a goat, instead of that of a horse and we'll have a deal." 

The merchant bodily recoiled at the suggestion. 

"Alright," Lambert huffed with a wave of his hand. "I'll raise my offer to a sheep's worth. That's more than enough for some scented tree bark." 

Counting out the right amount of coin, the witcher held out his hand. The merchant took the money with a scowl. 

"As long as you will stop putting off my customers and be on your way."

With a smug grin, Lambert handed the pouch filled with cinnamon to Aiden, who stored it happily in his bag. He bounced in his steps as they walked down the street and leaned closer to quietly talk to Lambert, their shoulders brushing. 

"Kinnamômon orneon," he shared with a smile. 

Lambert played dumb. 

"What?" 

"That's the scientific name for the cinnamon bird and you know it."

"Really? Never heard of it," the Wolff claimed with a shit eating grin and bumped his shoulder once more against Aiden's. 


	16. Climb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Humor + classic witcher monsters

Aiden reached out and easily grabbed a protruding part of stone to pull himself up. His long limbs and lean muscles made climbing the bold rock face quite simple. Poor Lambert had it more difficult. He was close behind Aiden, trying to copy his steps, but he couldn't always reach the same hold and had to take more intermediate steps. His muscles were stronger than the cat witcher's, but they also meant more bulk distributed all over his body and soon he was weary from pulling the weight up a mountain side. 

Aiden could hear the Wolf curse and looked down over his shoulder to check on him, when the goat suddenly standing close to Lambert startled him, too. 

"I guess we found one of the victims," he commented drily and watched as the animal climbed past them in high-speed, needing barely any ledge to find hold on and seemingly disobeying the laws of gravity altogether. 

Soon the mountain side leveled out and they could almost normally walk again. Rich green grass and rare herbs grew up there in the shadows of pine trees. A stream with the most clear water Aiden had ever seen rushed downhill. 

They took a drink from the cold and refreshing water before following the animal towards a cozy looking cabin, where more goats were grazing lazily in the afternoon sun. 

"Eskel would love it here. Five ducates say the alderman's goatman is a sylvan," Lambert wagered confidently. 

"Oh, I really hope it's a succubus."

The Wolf punched the other man's shoulder and glared at him. 

"Ow, just because I want to win 5 ducates of course," Aiden quickly explained, batting his eyelashes in an act of pure innocence. 

Moving closer, they could make out two different heartbeats. They were both too relaxed to belong to a victim so Aiden dared to hope for two beautiful succubi. 

Upon knocking on the door though, a brawny man who filled out the whole door frame opened up. The pointed horns on his head and the hooves in place of feet painted him as the goatman the villagers had described. He was absolutely unfazed by his state of undress. 

The two witchers held out their palms to show that they were without weapons. 

"We just want to talk," Lambert calmly assured the sylvan, while Aiden reached into his purse and counted out his coin. "There's a village at the foot of this mountain demanding your head if they don't get back their goats."

"Their goats?" shrieked a female voice from inside and the sylvan stepped aside to make way for a beautiful, equally naked woman with rounded horns and goat legs. 

With a smirk, Aiden let the five ducates drop back into his purse. 

"Don't waste your energy, darling," the puck told his lover, but she was furious and ready to rant. 

"They are not the villagers' goats, they belong to us! Those vile creatures climb up here and take down with them whatever or whoever they like. They think they own the whole damn mountain and everything upon it. Blasted humans, may the bloede pest take them! And if you still want to take the goats, you will have to fight us first!"

Lambert raised his hands placatingly. 

"Where not here to kill you. You are clearly intelligent people and I believe you. We still need you to come to an agreement with the village."

The following discussion was loud and filled with anger, more of Lambert's kind of entertainment than Aiden's. The Cat was looking from the sylvan and the succubus, who were obviously involved, to the goats on the meadow, when the question blurted out of him. 

"So, are the goats your children?" 

There was a shocked silence, the relict's eyes were big and his face turned an alarming shade of red. 

"Get away!" he shouted and threw the first thing at the witchers that his hands could grab, which was a rather large candelabra. "You racist riff-raff, get away from me and my wife!" 

Aiden barely evaded the missile and was quickly ushered away by Lambert's urgent pushing. 

"Why couldn't you just keep your damn mouth shut for once?" Lambert demanded to know as they ran from the fuming devil behind them. "Now, we won't even get paid!" 

"Shut up and climb!" Aiden retorted and lowered himself over the ledge. 

Another goat climbed playfully along beside him, mocking him for his lacking skills with a loud bahh. 


	17. TV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> creepy picture

There was a knock on the door before Triss entered, she carried fresh linen which Aiden took from her with a thanks.

"Sorry about the mess," she repeated and Lambert waved her off once more. 

"Better than sleeping on the streets, Merigold," he told her and pointed at the window where heavy rain was drumming against the glass. "But why do you keep all this rubbish around?" 

The chamber she had given them had probably been a guest room once, but now looked more like a stowage. Sturdy furniture and delicate items alike were stored here and collecting dust. The witchers' medallions had called out their silent alarm before they even had stepped a foot inside and Aiden felt his skin itching with the amount of magic in the air. The sorceress had assured them that it all was safe. 

"It's not rubbish, these are valuable artefacts. This for example," she picked up a small trinket that reminded Lambert of a silver hair clip. "This is part of a mhabutna, it gives diseases a specific form that will help you to identify them better and treat the patient accordingly."

"Do you have the rest of the mhabutna?" 

"These are very rare devices and the knowledge on how to build them is guarded by a handful of mages."

"So this lone piece is useless, therefore rubbish," Lambert concluded and Merigold frowned, but didn't put the piece back. 

"What does this one do?" asks Aiden and with an uneasy feeling points at a painting in an ornate frame. A dense jungle at night was depicted on the canvas and the plants and trees seemed to actually move with a passing breeze. 

Triss turns toward the item with excitement gleaming in her eyes. 

"It's a mirevort, or téle visio as the mages have begun to call it, which means nothing more than to look far. It shows moving pictures from Zangvebar."

In the moving painting, an exotic bird with long feathers scurried over the ground and disappeared again beneath a bush. 

"Is this happening right now?" 

"Oh no, this is like many pictures in a row. They have been taken long ago," Triss explained as easily as she could.

"So it's purely decorative and actually useless?" Lambert piped up again. 

"It's not! It gives insight on the flora and fauna of a place without having to travel there oneself." 

"A book can do that, too." 

"Not like the mirevort," the sorceress insisted and showed them a few more artefacts, which all failed to impress Lambert, but gave Aiden the creeps. 

After she had left them to unpack, Aiden gave his Wolf a sidelong glance. 

"So, what's the story between you and Triss?" 

Lambert gave a confused grunt, but didn't stop taking off his armor. 

"You're even more rude than usual, but still accepted her invitation. You tend to not let people you hate help you."

"I respect her as a sorceress," Lambert began to explain and after a moment of sorting out his thoughts he continued. "I like her, but there were some messy things she did with Geralt, and I'm in no place to preach about morals, but she went too far. In the end the soft hearted fool forgave her, but I won't forget."

Noticing that Lambert didn't really want to talk about it, Aiden suppressed his following questions. Instead he sat down on the freshly made bed with a dramatic flair. 

"You should have told me sooner, I was so polite! I should be more of an ass, too." 

Lambert huffed, but couldn't fight the small smile on his lips. 

"You don't have to, she's actually a nice person."

"I know, but I'm gonna. We're a team and I've got to support you."

"You're an idiot," Lambert smiled as he climbed into bed.

Grinning, Aiden snuggled up to him. 

"No, we are an idiot." 

Despite the soft bed and the reassuring hold of his lover, sleep wouldn't come easily to the cat witcher. He felt as though someone was watching them, but there were no sounds to support that suspicion, no light steps moving closer and no foreign heartbeats or strange breathing coming from the dark shadows. 

Waking up in the middle of the night, his tired mind followed his subconscious' urge to look over his shoulder. He startled fully awake when a pair of bright white eyes stared back at him. 

Within a moment's fraction, he had grabbed the knife from the bedside table and thrown it right between the invader's eyes.

Lambert, who had been woken by Aiden's racing heartbeat, was immediately out of bed, his sword at the ready. He held his free hand prepared for a Sign while his eyes adjusted to the dark, but nothing attacked. With a flick of his fingers, he lit a candle and followed Aiden's gaze to the téle visio. 

The picture had changed again. On the dark ground of the jungle lay Aiden's knife, the moon's light reflecting on the sharp blade. 

Taking his silver sword in hand, Aiden walked cautiously towards the artefact and tried to peer deeper into undergrowth, but the pair of eyes and its owner were gone. He pressed a hand to the canvas and felt the dry paint moving beneath his fingers, but not giving way into the world it was depicting. 

Lambert stepped behind him, his eyes big as he studied the moving painting and the dagger that had just become part of it. 

"I'll get Merigold." 


	18. Glow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> creepy monster, slight sexual assault (woman touching Lambert and forcing a "kiss" on him)

The tavern was warm and its patrons were loud. The days of harvest were close and most peasants spent the last lazy evenings of summer drinking and playing cards before the weeks would come when they would be too tired from the hard work on the fields to do more than fall into bed. 

After their successful contract the villagers were grateful for the two witchers' presence and happily shared their space. Aiden was quickly sucked into the lively chaos, arm wrestled with the young farmers, pondered about the good old days with the village elders and danced with their daughters to the rhythm of a badly tuned fiddle. 

Lambert was content to stay on the sidelines, sipping his ale at his table in the corner and smiling as he watched his lover interacting with the humans. Aiden had always been a people person, thriving with the attention of a well-meaning crowd, whereas the Wolf could never turn off the feeling that those eyes watching him wished harm upon him. To him, it felt safer outside of the spotlight, but he loved to watch his partner enjoying being at the center of the commotion. 

A young woman sat down next to the Wolf witcher, a tankard in hand and a polite smile on her lips. 

"I'm not in the mood for company tonight," Lambert said automatically without taking his eyes off his friend, who was laughing about one of the waitress' impish replies. 

The woman didn't answer, she just lowered her head sheepishly and gave him a coy smile. 

Lambert decided to ignore her and it should have been fairly easy to do so, she sat quietly without interrupting his watching, but her stillness and beauty had an allure of their own. Her light hair gleamed like gold in the candlelight and her features were soft and unblemished as freshly fallen snow. Most prominent were her bright blue eyes that seemed to shine with their own light. 

"You're not too keen on all the hubbub, are you?" the witcher wondered aloud and she simply gave a small nod. He took a big gulp from his drink before agreeing with her. "Yeah, me neither." 

They sat in companionable silence, the only words spoken were Lambert's snide comments on the proceedings in the tavern, which earned him a guttural laugh from his table-mate, insecurely hidden behind one hand. By now, he mused that the young peasant must be mute or at least have teeth ugly enough to retain from talking. In any case, she was bearable enough to not drive her away. He even enjoyed trying to make her cakle hard enough to forget to hide her laugh behind her palm, though he didn't succeed. 

Before long, he had emptied five tankards and his bladder was ready to burst. Informing his unknown company that he needed to take a piss, he got up and left the building. 

Lambert aimed for the first tree he could see outside of the tavern. While he relieved himself, he could hear steps walking up behind him and found that the speechless woman had followed him. 

She crowded him against the tree and pressed her hand against his uncovered dick. 

"I'm not interested and definitely not paying," the witcher tried to fob her off.

He pushed against her shoulders, but found her stronger than her small frame would appear to be. Even struggling with his full strength, he couldn't get her off him. He reached for the sword on his back, but she took his wrists in her hand and captured him between her body and the tree trunk. Her grip felt as tight as a steel trap and Lambert struggled to breath. 

Using his last lung full of air, he shouted for Aiden, hoping that the other man would hear him despite the noise inside of the tavern. 

The woman moved her head closer, her lips slowly parting and for the first time of the night, Lambert could see her open mouth. Her insides were glowing, a bright blue light seemed to come from within her throat and casted a ray that was blinding to the eye. 

She pressed her mouth against his, biting his lip when he wouldn't open up to her. When he still wouldn't part his lips, she butted her forehead against his face. 

The blow felt like a Hammer to his nose, the bone broke instantly and blood began to flow in hot rivulets. Unable to breathe through his nose anymore, he gasped for air and immediately felt her deadly kiss. 

He could feel the glow rushing into his mouth like the burning of a large swig of too strong vodka. 

The liquid flames pressed into his throat, when suddenly the weight of the woman was off him and he dropped to his knees, spluttering and retching. 

To the side, he saw Aiden take his assailant down with a well positioned Yrden and a few practiced blows of his silver sword. 

Weakened, the blue light crept out of it's dead host's mouth like an amorphous slug, its glow waning.

Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, Lambert walked over and squashed the demon beneath his heel. 

  
  



	19. Skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> talk about oparasites, fae creature as parasite, does this count as body horror?

Lambert pulled his shirt over his head and divided right back into the sanctuary of Aiden's embrace. Open arms welcomed him eagerly, hands roamed over his back, their warm palms caressing his skin with loving touches. He sank into his lover's kiss and got lost in its depth. 

After a few moments of burning intimacy though, he noticed that he was the only one who let himself unravel in their passion. 

"What's wrong?" he asked, slightly worried about why Aiden had stopped kissing back. 

The Cat witcher was staring over his shoulder and poking a finger at his back. 

"This lump is new."

"Oh, don't worry. That's just a parasite," Lambert explained shortly and puckered his lips for more kissing, but Aiden stopped him with a hand against his chest. 

"Do you want me to cut it out?" 

"Nah, I want to know how long it takes my body to repel to foreign matter."

The Cat frowned at him in disbelief. 

"Please tell me you didn't infect yourself with a parasite on purpose."

"I didn't get a parasite on purpose," the Wolf reasoned. "I just purposely didn't get rid of it. It's an experiment." 

"Sure, and it's got nothing to do with the fact that you can't reach your own back for shit," Aiden scoffed and shoved his partner off to grab for his hunting knife. "Come here, I'll cut it out." 

"You will not!" Lambert gasped and turned his back away from the other witcher. "I was hunting and took some potions since I got it, the toxins inside those have already killed it anyway."

"Yes and now that parasite's rotting inside of you. You wanna know what's gonna happen? You're gonna have an infection that you probably won't even notice, thanks to the mutations, but it will still produce a shitton of pus until the abscess bursts and floods out the foreign body along with all of that nasty pus and then you'll have to wait for that wound to heal as well!"

Lambert rolled his eyes at his friend's dramatics. 

"I knew all that, I just don't know how long it will take to fester."

Aiden blinked at him for a minute, then shrugged in defeat. 

"That's gross, but it's your gross body. Just don't ask me to scratch your back when the abscess starts itching."

"But would you still touch my gross body in other ways?" Lambert leered and put his hand on Aiden's thigh, who just sighed in surrender and laid back down on his bedroll. 

"I had a water hag puke on me last week, fucking you is just another low point of many for me," he quipped and burried his fingers in Lambert's hair to pull him into another kiss. 

They moved languidly against each other, both not in a hurry to get off but simply enjoying the closeness until Lambert pulled back with a startled hiss. 

"Fuck, Aiden, I told you to let it be!" 

"I didn't do anything!" 

The Wolf's face distorted in pain again and he tried to reach for his back. 

"It's moving," Aiden informed him as he peered at the squirming swelling on the younger witcher's back. "Will you please let me cut it out, it's definitely moving beneath your skin." 

"Fine," Lambert grumbled and clenched his teeth to keep from showing his discomfort as another piercing ache shot through his back. 

His knife back in hand, Aiden scooted close behind Lambert and looked for the best area to place the cut, when the parasite lunged to the side and Lambert locked up his muscles with the sudden pain. 

"Oh no, you don't," the cat witcher murmured beneath his breath, his attention fully on the task. 

He pressed against Lambert's back firm enough to push him forward, keeping the parasite from moving further, and with a swiftness he usually used to take down monsters, he opened a shallow cut with his blade right over the swelling. 

Blood spurted out of the wound and ran down parallel to Lambert's spine. He grunted when Aiden pressed around the wound to squeeze out the parasite. 

"Got it!" the Cat exclaimed proudly while a tiny high pitched voice began to snarl at them. 

Curious, Lambert turned around and startled at seeing the naked pixie-like creature captured between Aiden's hands. 

"What is that?" 

The small wrinkled being was covered in Lambert's blood fighting furiously against Aiden's hold. Its buckteeth seemed as sharp as its clawed fingers and soon the Cat's hands were bleeding with scratches and bite marks. 

"Congrats," Aiden grimaced. "You captured a very rare flesh mole. Now you can make a new entry in your book about different fae creatures."

Without further ado, he decapitated the carnivore with a stroke of his knife, then tossed the remains into the campfire. 

"Now, where were we," Aiden hummed and pulled Lambert back down onto the bedroll. 


	20. Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ghost tale, omen of death

Lambert climbed out of the cooled water and dried his body with the same damp linen Aiden had used before. The Cat had been the first to bathe in the small tub and was already drowsing on the bed. 

After today's hunt they were both dead on their feet and Aiden even more so. The cockatrice's nestling had already been bigger than they had estimated and the older witcher had shoved his slower partner out of the way of the beast's venomous attack and taken the brunt himself. White Honey had reduced the toxicity in his body, the rest he had to simply sleep off. 

Lambert listened as his lover's heartbeat was slowing down and his breathing evened out, every minute now he would be fully asleep. 

With a startled yelp, though, he awoke again, his hand flashing to his dagger and looking wildly around. 

"Where did he go?" he demanded in a panic as Lambert rushed to his side and pushed down the weapon wielding hand. 

"No one's here," he Wolf soothed him. "It was just a nightmare."

"I wasn't sleeping! There was a guy right next to the door, he was staring at me."

"You had your eyes closed, you were on the brink of sleep. It's no shame to have nightmares, it's just another part of being a witcher."

Aiden let his eyes sweep through the room once more. 

"It felt so real," he mumbled. 

"Don't worry, go back to sleep." 

Following Lambert's advice, the Cat laid back down, but before long, his heartbeat exhilarated again and he shot back up,his eyes fixed on the spot next to the door. 

Rushing to his side, Lambert took his sweaty face in hand and peered into his eyes. 

"Aiden, look at me," the younger witcher implored. "It wasn't real, it's just a nightmare."

The dazed man nodded his head quickly, but didn't say anything. His labored breathing was loud enough to fill the room and somehow answer enough. 

Lambert climbed into bed with him and put his arms around him, holding him in a tight embrace. 

"I'm here, alright? Nothing's ever gonna happen to you as long as I'm with you," he promised and settled them both down to sleep. 

Aiden melted back against his chest. He held onto Lambert just as tightly. 

"Thank you." 

As the Cat dozed off once more, Lambert stayed awake a little longer, looking over his weary lover. He had to tighten his arms around him and whisper comforting words when Aiden began to tense up again, but after a few moments of whimpering and struggling, he relaxed again and fell into a deep slumber. Lambert buried his nose in the other man's neck, breathed in the calming scent and let sleep take him under, too. 

The next day, Lambert was relieved to find Aiden well rested and in a good mood. The Cat packed their stuff and readied their horses, while Lambert bought some last supplies from the innkeeper before they would spend the following days on the road. 

"A blessed ostara," she greeted him at the counter. 

"Yeah, yeah, and a fertile year to you," he replied. He never cared much for the peasants' holidays, the first melting of the snow at Kaer Morhen was the only yearly occasion he deemed worthy of celebrating. 

Holding out some coins, he asked for bread and cheese. On a whim, he added dried fruits to the list and handed more money over. He thought eating dried fruit was like chewing on leather straps, but for some unfathomable reason Aiden loved to snack it. 

"I hope you didn't dream of Gunnar last night," the innkeeper winked as she pulled the items out of her pantry. 

Lambert made a nonsensical noise, uninterested in chit chat, but the woman took his grunt as a request to tell more. 

"Seeing him means that you won't survive the year. They say Gunnar used to live here a century ago. He was an evil man, beating his wife and child and drinking away all of his money."

Lambert's shoulders tensed. He knew exactly what type of man she was talking about. 

"He started to steal and even kill people. One night he met a devil and exchanged his soul for a bottle of vodka. But he tricked the demon, who then got angry and he swore to never let Gunnar's soul into hell. At first, the evil man thought this to beq luck, but when he died of old age and the gods refused to grant him entrance to heaven, he understood that he was cursed to spend eternity alone, wandering the world between the living and the dead. The only time he can be seen is during the night of ostara, the time between the years. And only when the person is between the waking world and the dream world, he can speak to them. He will ask to follow the doomed person into death, heaven or hell isn't important any longer, he just wants to finally rest."

Without returning her polite smile, Lambert took the food from her and turned to leave. 

"Bunch of bullshit," he huffed in lieu of a goodbye, and he meant it. 

Witchers' lives were at stake almost every day and witchers had nightmares almost every night. The near death experiences triggered the nightmares, but no nightmare ever caused death. 

Outside, Aiden waited on top of his horse, holding the rein of Lambert's mare, too. The Wolf stored his purchases in the saddlebags before mounting. 

"Ready?" asked Aiden, a smile on his lips and his cheeks rosy with excitement. 

Without prompting, Lambert's mind conjured an image of his lover's face with a pale hue, his eyes dull and without a twinkle, the smirking lips forever twisted in pain. 

Fuck prophetic dreams, he thought. Fuck death and destiny, he wouldn't allow this. 

Not trusting his voice, he gave Aiden an awry smile and nodded, then they both went back onto the path. 


	21. Void

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> strange curse

Lambert parried the monster's attack with his swords and its claws chimed as they clashed with the silver. It snarled, spit spewing from between its massive teeth between which it could easily crush a witcher in his armor. The tiny nose wheezed with every laboured breath and the eyes, dissimilar in colour and size, gaped witless at its prey. The ashen skin was covered in boils and eczema. 

Their contract had originally been on lifting the curse that had been cast upon the nobleman, but their plan had failed and the only option left was to kill the beast. 

Word was that the village witch near the castle had been angry with the lord's decadent lifestyle while the peasants outside the castle walls were sick and starving. Witnesses had seen her call him a heartless monster, void of love and empathy and that his body would soon represent his character. The lord's wife, who had hired the witchers to break the curse, had in a fist of rage let her guards kill the witch before she could give them any helpful information about how to transform him back. One thing led to another and the monster had broken out of its cell to terrorise the castle halls. To save innocent lives, they had decided to take it down. 

The monster charged at Aiden, who danced around it in quick steps and managed a few strikes at its thick skin, nothing fatal, but enough to slow it down. 

"Aard!" Lambert shouted in warning and the Cat ducked low to let the force of the Sign pass above him. 

The magic hit the monster full on and hurled it along the corridor. It smashed onto its back a few feet away. Lambert had already taken a running start and jumped on top of it to bury his sword in its chest. He expected the blade to drive through flesh and muscles and be stopped by the marble floor beneath the creature, but it continued to sink into the body. 

The momentum of the attack pulled the young witcher down onto his knees and his upper body, which he had used to push more power behind the blow, toppled over, causing him to land with his arms probed on the beast. His sword was driven so deep into the flesh, the hilt was pressed against the monster's sternum. 

Despite the fatal blow, the cursed lord was still snarling and grasping for the wolf witcher, but before it could close its jaw around Lambert's head, Aiden striked his weapon down and severed the head from the neck. 

In the following quiet, the two man's hard breathing sounded like a roaring storm. 

Accepting his partner's outstretched hand, Lambert let himself be pulled to his feet, then extracted his sword from tahe corpse. Strangely, there was no blood on the blade. The puncture wound had been precise, but the stab to the heart hadn't been enough to defeat the monster. Lambert couldn't help but wonder why. 

He inspected the wound he had inflicted, using a knife to widen the slash when he couldn't see anything beside darkness. To his astonishment, darkness was all there was to see. The hole he had cut was as black as a forest on a moonless night, seemingly swallowing all light around it. 

Aiden peered over Lambert's shoulder, spewing profanities in his astonishment. Before the Wolf could stop him, he bent over and put his hand into the chest cavity. It simply disappeared as if it was dunked into a bucket full of black ink. 

He pulled his unaltered hand back out and studied it for a moment, then plunged his full arm up until his shoulder into the darkness. The backside of the creature should have stopped him or the ground beneath at least, but he couldn't feel any barrier, not even when he started to move his arm around in wide circles. 

Lambert pulled him back. 

"Do you want to lose an arm? What if it has extra teeth in there?" 

"There aren't teeth," Aiden insisted. "There is nothing, it's just void."

"Maybe it's a portal?" Lambert reasoned but the Cat already shook his head. 

"It's the curse, the emptiness inside the lord. No wonder the monster kept devouring so many guards, there literally was a bottomless hole inside of it." 

"How do you dispose of nothing?" Lambert hummed in thought. 

Scratching his beard, Aiden gave the only solution he could think of. 

"Let's burn it and hope that the  _ nothing _ burns down with the rest." 


	22. Chill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> not at all creepy spirit and some fluff (because anoke asked for it ;] )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's a day late 💁

"It's summer for fuck's sake, why are the Skellige Islands still so fucking cold?"

Lambert was getting rather uncreative with his cursing, by which Aiden knew that the younger witcher was actually afflicted by the weather. So, instead of reminding him that it was his idea to come here, he stepped close behind Lambert, who was warming his hands over the pyre of drowners they had exterminated, and put his arms around him. 

Lambert leaned back into his partner's warmth and gave a world-weary sigh. 

"My fucking feet are soaked." 

He glared at the puddles on the wet sand and then at the ocean that kept pushing more water onto the shore with every wave. 

"The ocean fucking sucks." 

"I know," Aiden chuckled and pressed his face against the back of Lambert's neck, who tensed instantly and gave a gentle headbutt to push him away. 

"Stop it, your nose feels like ice!" 

The Cat kissed the spot in apology, then pulled up the collar of Lambert's leather jacket to shield off the biting wind. 

"Just a few more minutes to make sure we got all of the bastards and then we can go back to the tavern," he promised his Wolf. "A hot bath, a warm meal and a toasty bed. Sound good?"

Lambert hummed in approval. 

"Some steamy sex, too?" 

"Sure," the cat witcher smiled and closed his eyes. Resting his cheek on Lambert's shoulder, he listened closely to their surroundings, but he couldn't hear any drowners or other monsters approaching. 

The night's dark blue on the horizon already lightened in preparation of dawn, chasing off the stars. The crisp morning air smelled of salt water and fresh frost. After hours of hunting in the cold shadows, Aiden couldn't wait to get back to their room, too. 

Lambert shivered in his arms. 

"Is it me or is it getting colder?" 

"How do you even survive the winter in the blue mountains?", Aiden smirked and blinked his eyes open, about to let go of Lambert and telling him that is was time to leave, when the sight in front of him had him froze in his position. 

A few feet away from them stood a giant moose. It had no heartbeat, no warm breath streamed from its nostrils. Moss and mushrooms grew on its massive back and delicate spiderwebs spanned between its antlers. Droplets of dew clinged to the green carpet and the silken threads, glittering like powdered glass. A faint fog followed it and whereever it stepped, thin ice formed beneath its ivory hooves. 

A chill ran down Aiden's spine as he looked into crystal clear eyes and that gazed straight back. 

"It's the early morning frost," he whispered breathless and watched entranced as the weather spirit silently moved past them. 

"Fucking Skellige," Lambert reverted to cursing, unaware of the ghostly animal. "Looks like we got all of those foul bastards," he declared and stepped out of his partner's embrace. "Let's move before I freeze off a testicle." 

The Cat witcher nodded absentmindedly, his eyes still on the spot where the faint form of the moose had dissolved into mist. Shaking his head slightly, he cleared his mind from the spirit's icy grip and followed Lambert back to the warm tavern.


	23. Owl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> curse turning boy into creepy half child half owl

The desperate man threw himself in front of Aiden and Lambert's feet as they passed a field full of hard working peasants. 

"Master Witcher, I beseech you! My boy Jonek has been cursed. I pay you all I have if you help him!" 

Lambert pulled the man roughly to his feet. 

"Stop the crouching and have some dignity. You still have to set a good example for your son and behave like a man. Now tell us exactly what's going on before making any bargain."

"Thank you, it's probably best I show you." 

The poor farmer led the witchers to his home, it was more of a shack than a house. In front of it sat a tired looking woman with a stony face. She paused mending the shirt in her lap when she noticed her husband approaching with two strangers. She regarded them with grief in her eyes. 

"New miracle performers?" 

"Witchers, Jelena, no charlatans," the farmer pledged. "If they can't help Jonek, no one will." 

"And what do those witchers demand for their work?" 

"Nothing, not if we can't lift the curse," Aiden told her and saw the scepticism on her face. "We just need to know if your boy is dangerous. In case we can't find a cure and he will have to be taken down."

"No!" the father insisted loudly. "He's as tame as a kitten, he just can't have a normal happy life like this. He sleeps all day and roams all night, he only eats rare meat, rodents and hare and such mostly. The other villagers are scared of him and want him gone, though he never hurt anyone!"

Having heard such claims often, Lambert studied the wife. 

"You are scared of him, too," he stated and the woman didn't deny it. 

"I am scared, yes. That thing inside there isn't my son. I'd rather have you take him off our hands." 

"How could you say this, that's my flesh and blood!" 

The distraught man raised his hand against his wife, but before he could strike, Aiden had caught his arm. 

"We're not here to witness marital disputes. Lead us inside."

The house had little to offer. A single room with a hearth in the middle, lumpy mattresses to the side and few shelves with the family's sparse belongings hanging on the walls. They obviously didn't swim in riches. 

Quilts covered the small windows and held the room in gloomy darkness. The man closed the door behind them swiftly, keeping out the sunlight. 

"Bright light hurts his eyes," he explained in an apologetic voice. 

Conveniently, the witchers' cat eyes adjusted quickly and they could still make out the form of the child perched in the corner. The way the boy was facing the wall, it was hard to tell what was wrong with him, but they knew that appearances could be deceptive. Their vibrating medallions warned them about the strong resident magic close by, after all. 

"Jonek," the father roused his son. "Jonek, wake up. These men are here to help you." 

The child's shoulders tensed and his heartbeat quickened as he woke. In jagged movements, he turned his head to the side and peered over his shoulder. The little light in the room reflected in his green eyes. His nose and mouth were missing, in their place was a flat beak, sharp enough to rip chunks of flesh apart. 

Curious about the visitors, he turned around his head completely, moving past a humanly possible angle, and fixed his unblinking eyes on them. 

"Come here, Jonek," the father beckoned the cursed boy. "The men have to take a closer look to find out how to change you back."

Keeping his head turned towards them, the child turned around the rest of its body and waddled towards them. 

Lambert was taken aback when he noticed that the kid hadn't been perched after all, but his legs were extremely shortened, his arse sitting low above his feet. The long shirt hid most of his body, but the Wolf guessed that the rest of it was deformed, too. 

"He didn't have impairments before?" he asked their client. 

"He was as healthy a boy as they come." 

Aiden knelt down in front of the bird-like creature. 

"Hello, Jonek, it is nice to meet you. My name is Aiden." 

"Hoo-h'HOO-hoo," hooted Jonek in answer. 

The Cat gave him a reassuring smile and a soft clap on his bony shoulder. 

"Don't worry, we'll take care of you." 

"Easiest way to resolve this is to find the person that inflicted the curse," Lambert told the father. "Can you think of anyone who might wish harm upon your family?" 

"No, we were well respected before Jonek's change."

"Maybe it was fae or other magical beings," Aiden piped up as he stood again. "Do you know of places your son liked to visit? Somewhere he used to play?"

The man thought for a moment, before his eyes lighted up. 

"The old watchtower. The children play hide and seek there, no matter how many times their parents forbid it."

"Sounds as good a place to start as any," Lambert shrugged. "Let's go, Aiden." 


	24. Sailor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> brawl with a ghost

Aiden tried to concentrate on his cards, but Lambert and the sailors he was drinking with at the bar were getting louder. Surely, he would have to intervene any moment now. 

"I've dismembered many sirens," he could hear Lambert argue with passion, not letting anyone question his authority as a witcher. "And none of them had a cunt, let alone an asshole."

"Do you always check monsters for fuckable holes after killing them?" the bald man in the outdated clothes and with nautical tattoos on his exposed arms sneered, earning him a laugh from the rest of his small crew. "I swear, I fucked a siren into the arse and she liked it!" 

The noise made it harder to understand the continued debate. Staying alerted, Aiden played his next card. 

After a very profitable contract, they had decided to treat themselves to a night of booze and bad decisions. The grimy tavern in Novigrad's harbour quarter was the perfect location for this kind of unrestrained entertainment. It wasn't long until closing time and Aiden had lost a considerable amount of money at Gwent, while Lambert was having problems standing straight. 

Confident that he could still turn the tide in his favour, he laid down the Commander's Horn, doubling his siege cards' strength, only to deflate when his opponent played Scorch and destroyed his strongest unit. 

The barmaid walked past their table and refilled their tankards. The Cat witcher thanked her with a smile and asked about the group of sailors. 

She gave him a conspiratorial smile. 

"Oh, they like to think they're sailors, but they haven't set sails in ages. They came with the premises, pitch up here every night, but they ain't making trouble, so we let them have their fun."

Before she could elaborate further, the ruckus from the bar grew once more. 

"You dim-witted drunkard probably caught a trout and fucked its mouth, the siren was just a hallucination caused by drinking nothing but your own piss for days," Lambert hollered, the beer in his hand spilling onto the ground as he gesticulated vigorously. 

The crowd around him roared with laughter and in outrage equally. Entertained by the argument, some stood unbiased to the side and cackled about the creative insults the two men were throwing at each other. A few patrons, however, seemed to stand behind their mate and looked ready to bash Lambert's face into a pulp. 

The broad shouldered man's face was red with anger as he stepped up too close to the wolf witcher. 

"I'll fuck your tight asshole and have you moan on my cock!" 

Having heard enough, Aiden dropped his cards and crossed the room with quick steps. He tapped the seaman's shoulder and, the moment the sturdy man turned his head, punched him into his ugly mug. 

"You wanna go, let's go!" he shouted and held out his arms in challenge. 

The man recovered quickly and tackled him, but despite the difference in body mass, the Cat stayed on his feet, holding onto his opponent and hitting his fist against his side, aiming for the kidney. 

The bulk around them was whooping and clapping, hovering between wanting to see everything and getting out of the way of flying fists. 

"Settle this outside!" the barmaid screeched and suddenly the crowd around them was shoving into Aiden's back, pushing the fighting men through the door. 

Outside, dawn was approaching at a fast pace, brightening the street in a red glow. The spectators formed a circle around the cat witcher and the sailor, placing bets and spurring the fighters on. They obviously hoped to see the street painted in red of a different kind. 

"You useless dipshit," Aiden heard his partner shout from between the onlookers and couldn't rule out that Lambert actually meant him. 

The insults spewing sailor was on him again, his movements were slow and predictable. The cat witcher could easily dodge those, but this wasn't a hunt, where he needed to tire out the monster and wait for an opportunity to strike. This was a good old fashioned brawl and the only defense of his and his lover's reputation was to attack straight. 

He let his opponent strike his ribs to use the short distraction for his own blow. With a sickening sound, he broke the other man's nose, but he didn't even seem to notice the pain. 

The next tackle brought him to the ground and they wrestled for the upper hand, rolling over the cobblestones and bringing in kicks and punches. Biting and scratching was also introduced and at one point, the seaman even pulled the witcher's hair. The fight was more that of two wild dogs than skilled combatants. 

Aiden lunged out once more, but his hand went through his target and against the ground, his knuckles painfully connecting with the stones. 

He stared in surprise at his arm, that was pushed through the other man's now translucent face. Swiftly pulling his hand back, he sat up and watched as his opponent became less tangible. 

The seaman spat at him, but his spit vanished in thin air before hitting Aiden's cheek and within a blink of an eye, the sailor was gone. 

Astonished, Aiden looked up and found the rest of the crew had dissolved in the first light of the day, too. Only Lambert and a few other guests from the tavern were still there, but those quickly scattered once they saw that the show was over. They were probably crawling home to hide from the rising sun and come back out once darkness claimed the city again. 

The Wolf walked over and helped Aiden to his feet. 

"You're such a brainless witcher, getting into a fistfight with a ghost." 

Aiden grinned, the excess adrenaline leaving him manic. 

"Admit it," he teased too loudly. "It was romantic!" 

He winced as he received a punch to his shoulder and a kiss to his bruised lips. 


	25. Rotten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> poisonous plant, talk of child death

The deer didn't show any sign of a violent death and no carnivorous animal had gorged on the carcass, yet. The faint acid smell had probably prevented that. 

Lambert studied the maggots crawling around its eyes and snout, then pushed a knife into its flesh and cut its belly open. 

The rising smell of death and decay was overwhelming. From outside, the animal looked like it had been alive a mere minute ago, but the insides were as rotten as if it had been lying here for weeks. 

"Aw, fuck," Aiden breathed as he looked over his partner's shoulder at the dead deer. 

"You got an idea what did this?" Lambert asked as he poked through the putrid entrails. 

"A hunch," Aiden answered and looked around the clearing. 

A few feet away, he spotted lush bushes bearing bright purple berries. The leaves smelled sweet and the fruits looked ripe enough to burst. He picked one of the small berries and squashed it between his gloved fingers. Yellow liquid oozed out, the faint smell of acid returned and after a long moment of inactivity, the fluid slowly began to sizzle and affect his gloves' leather. 

He quickly washed away the dangerous substance with water from his flask, then turned to Lambert, who had walked up to him and had watched his investigations in interest. 

"It's a burning berry or kwasbush. It grants its fruits' consumers a slow and painful death by destroying the stomach and catalysing the putrefaction. Then the body practically poisons itself. The plant benefits double, less animals eat the berries and when some do, they become fertiliser for the seed they have eaten."

"That's why the girl was coughing up blood. It wasn't a curse or a new plague, she simply ate the wrong thing," Lambert concluded. 

"Awful way to lose a child, watching it wither away, unable to do anything." 

"Do you think we could use it?" the wolf witcher wondered. "Not for potions, mind you, but maybe as an ingredient in blade oil or bombs."

"I don't know, but I guess If anyone can find a way to use this stuff, it's you." Aiden shrugged, before pulling out a small container that usually held ash from a pyre. Pouring out the burned remains, he disclosed his terms. 

"You'll never work with the berries without wearing gloves," he instructed and glared in warning when Lambert rolled his eyes. "We'll get you another one with extra layers. And you don't try out the effectiveness on yourself or on our horses." 

He knew he wouldn't have to include himself on the list, the Wolf would never deliberately do something that could hurt his partner. 

"Alright, alright," Lambert huffed, annoyed yet understanding. "You're making my experiments unnecessarily difficult, but I'll manage." 

Later, they would have to explain to the grieving parents what had caused their daughter's death and warn the village about the plant in case that more of the bushes grew in the woods. For now though, they relaxed while picking poisonous berries. 


	26. Venom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dissecting a monster for parts

The pain from the bite brought Lambert to his knees, the cold wetness of the moor immediately soaking into his trousers. The jadzaba had its sharp teeth sunk deep into his shoulder, holding tightly onto his back. Pulling out his smaller knife, he blindly stabbed at the monster, slicing his own skin in the process. 

After a moment that felt entirely too long, the pressure on his deltoid lessened and the hands clawing at his flesh dropped. He tensed when he noticed movement behind him, but relaxed as soon as he recognized his hunting partner's light footsteps rushing towards him. 

"Frozen hells, Wolf, is this your school's usual way to collect venom?" Aiden jested as he stretched the creature's jaw wide open and carefully extracted the broad row of teeth, as uneven as a mountain ridge, from Lambert's skin. 

The Wolf witcher gasped in relief, but with the cleared wound came a flood of blood and a different kind of pain. Without thinking, his fingers found the vial of Swallow and he chugged the healing potion down, grimacing at the foul taste. 

Aiden helped to shed off the ruined armor and pushed the shirt aside to have a look at the injury. Using the shirt that was beyond remedy, he pressed down onto the bite, trying to stop the worst of the blood flow. 

"The healing kicked in," Lambert informed the Cat after a few minutes. "I can feel my skin knitting back together." 

Just to be sure, Aiden pushed against his partner's shoulder for another minute, before leaving Lambert to gather his strength. He turned towards the dead monster, his knife with the thinnest blade and a glass container in hand. 

The jadbaza's flat and wide head was a mess of stab wounds, the previously smooth scales butchered into a slobber of splattered blood and raw flesh. The mouth that span along the full width of the head hung loosely open, showing its crooked teeth, each one sharp as a needle point and oozing a clear and deadly liquid. 

This venom was the focus of their contract. Their employer was a rich lord to a fast estate who never set foot outside of his castle, ate the best meat and drank the most expensive bottles of wine every day. The pain within his bones had grown with every passing year, but some high paid healer promised that the jadbaza's venom in small doses would grant the suffering man some relief. 

Aiden knelt next to the creature's small body. Its greenish form was almost humanoid, like a small child with a toad's webbed hands and feet. He pushed it onto its back and confidently set his knife to work, slicing open its chest, breaking the ribs apart and cutting out the small greyish sac that contained the venom. 

He secured it in the glass container, before turning back towards Lambert, who looked sickly pale and had sweat gathering on his forehead. Alarmed by his partner's state, Aiden checked his delayed pupils and his unusually fast pulse. 

"Lambert, did you take the Golden Oriole against the toxins before the hunt?" he asked with worry, holding the Wolf's clammy face between his hands. 

"T'was the last one," Lambert slurred. "Need for emergency."

"This is an emergency, you dickhead!" 

"No. Body can burn through it," he waved the Cat off, but the other witcher was already running off towards their horses, which were left savely a hundred yards away from the fight. The potions in the saddlebags would counter the venom's fatal compound. 

"Don't you die on me, I'll be so mad when you die from this rookie mistake! I'll be back in a minute."

Lambert simply grunted in affirmation and closed his eyes, trying to meditate through the fever. 


	27. Sting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pretty stuff, big ouch

It was noon, the sun stood high above the forest and light fell through the lush canopy of leaves, illuminating them like stained glass in different shades of green. A light breeze rustled through the foliage, moving it like clear water gurgling down a mountain river. 

The scenery made it even for witchers difficult to notice the swarm of greenish translucent fae waft by. 

Aiden watched them in fascination. He had never seen anything that compared to the wobbling emerald floating through the air. 

This peculiar species had mushroom-like heads that pushed the fae upwards by pulsating open and close. Their frail bodies moved in languid waves with the motion of their heads. Whenever the wind picked them up and carried them higher, the witchers could hear their faint laughter. 

Seeing them was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and the teachers at the caravan of the cat school had meant a witcher's lifetime, not the pitifully short lifespan of a human. 

Desperate to get a better view, Aiden stepped forward, only to be stopped by a firm hand on his chest. 

"Don't touch the pretty thing," Lambert commanded, his hand holding tight onto the cat witcher's leather armor. 

The Cat bristled at the authoritative voice. 

"I wasn't going to, I just want to take a closer look." 

"Good idea, then you can see the tiny hairs on their limbs with which they sting attackers," the Wolf deadpanned. 

Aiden pushed his partner's hand away and protested the younger witcher's statement. 

"Drifting fae don't sting!"

"They totally do." 

"They don't." 

"Do." 

"I'll touch a fae to prove you wrong, loser will have to clean the other one's gear after the next hunt," Aiden declared and held out his hand, which Lambert accepted swiftly. 

"Deal."

Leaning his head back, the Cat witcher checked for the best position from where he could get close enough to touch the beautiful creatures. After considering the trees around them, he climbed nimbly onto one that the swarm was passing by, while beneath him, Lambert already pulled a flask of Swallow from his equipment bag. 

Holding onto a bigger branch, Aiden reached out with his other hand and let a fae sweep over the back of it. 

The creature's small body felt weightless and cool as it glided over his skin. Then the cooling feeling was abruptly gone and instead the area burned as if set on fire. 

Aiden cried out at the sudden surge of pain, letting go of the branch at the same time to instinctively cradle his injured hand close. He lost his balance and toppled to the forgiving forest ground, too distracted by the feeling of his veins on fire to roll and dampen the fall, but the grass and moss cushioning the impact. 

Lambert was quickly at the side of the moaning witcher and pushed the healing potion at him. As he inspected the angry red and swollen hand, he couldn't hold back the gloating grin on his face. He would make sure to get exorbitantly dirty during their next monster hunt. 

Desperately downing the Swallow, Aiden glared at him. 

"Why didn't you stop me?!" 


	28. Shell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> normal monster hunt with close call

Lambert was throwing bomb after bomb, but the explosions had no effect on the squirupa's enormous shell. The structure looked like a pointy tower had toppled over, the bottom being the only way in and out of the helical hollow. The wolf witcher tried his best to aim at the opening, but every promising throw was parried by a pink tentacle. 

Planning to distract it, Aiden had moved closer and climbed onto the rear part of the shell. He dodged the beast's attacks in his typical graceful manner, hacking left and right at slimy limbs. Yet, despite all his efforts, the faceless behemoth was still repelling all of Lambert's offenses. 

The younger witcher's heart stopped as he watched his friend jump over a low striking tentacle, only to be catched out of the air by the next. 

The Cat stabbed wildly at the arm around his waist. It squirmed in pain and let go off, dropping him ten feet over the ground. He managed to absorb the impact with a roll, but before he could scramble away, the beast had already snatched his leg and dragged him towards its maw. 

Rushing forward, Lambert swiped his sword blindly at everything in his way towards Aiden. He searched for an unprotected spot to attack or any other way to help, but couldn't find any, until he noticed Aiden pulling a bottle from his belt. The Cat witcher uncorked the bottle and let himself be pulled closer, before he threw it in a high arch at the opening. 

Smelling the flammable gas, Lambert waited only the fraction of a second that it took Aiden to cast a protective shield around himself, then signed Igni. 

The gush of fire devoured the gas in an avid explosion, blasting away the frontal parts of the shell and setting the tentacles aflame. The shock wave flinged Lambert backwards, taking away his senses for a moment that felt like an eternity. 

He hurried back onto his feet, silver sword at the defense, and searched with his eyes for Aiden. The other man was a few meters away from him, sitting up a bit slower and holding a hand to his bleading head. Lambert knew that head wounds always looked worse than they actually were and the Cat seemed to be lucid, which lifted at least some of the Wolf's worries. The rest of them would have to wait until after the fight was over. 

The tentacles still twirled in their manic dance, trying to flee from the pain that bit into their skin. 

Seizing the opportunity, Lambert jumped forward and striked at the limbs, hacking them off, one after the other. He noticed that Aiden had joined the fight, his movements slowed by the explosion's impact. But his strength was still enough to take on the weakened monster. Together, they made short process of the tentacles, then Lambert lighted another Dancing Star that exploded deep within the shell and ripped apart the last of the creature's flesh. 

As the carcass burned inside the broken shell, Lathe Wolf turned towards his hunting partner, who had propped his hands on his knees and catched his breath. 

"You alright there?" 

"Ungh, I think I bruised my everything." 

Finally straightening his back, Aiden gazed at Lambert with exhausted eyes. 

"You cast Igni before I even said anything." 

"Yeah," Lambert nodded. "I saw you use Quen and thought that was your plan."

Aiden slowly blinked at him with heavy eyelids and the Wolf began to squirm beneath the stare. 

"What?" 

It looked like it took the Cat a great effort to lift the corner of his mouth into a lopsided smile, but he did it anyway. 

"I'm just happy." 

"Sure, I'm glad we survived that, too," Lambert agreed, then frowned as he heard his hunting partner's chuckle. 

With preamble, Aiden threw his arms over Lambert's shoulders and leaned his weight onto him, his face buried in the other man's neck. 

"Uh, okay," the younger witcher uttered surprised and patted his best friend's back comfortingly. 

"I won't tell anyone if you hug me back," Aiden huffed amused. 

Tentatively, Lambert closed his arms around the Cat, then sighed wistfully as he felt his reluctance dissolve and leaned into the embrace. 


	29. Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Canon typical violence, raping and pillaging

Nilfgaard was gaining ground and getting closer to the capital with every piece of land they conquered. When Redanian forces thought a town or village was lost to the enemy, they'd set every house on fire and slaughter all livestock, before they would let them fall into their opponent's greedy hands. 

The settlement burning in the distance was no different, yet the peasants' screams got under Aiden's skin. The horses huffed nervously, they could smell the black smoke that the wind carried towards them, and the Cat knew by the strain in Lambert's shoulders that he wasn't as unbothered by the violent scenery as he pretended. 

"We should head further north, there is no work for witchers on war stricken land," Lambert commented, looking over at the corpses lying on the destroyed fields. Some had already been gnawed on by wild foxes and ghouls alike, the first nest of necrophages were probably manifesting close by already. 

"Well, at least none that people will pay for," he concluded. 

Another cry pierced the air. At the edge of the town, a family franitcally packed their most valuable possessions onto a cart, until soldiers approached and seized the horses reins. After throwing himself in their way, the aged farmer was quickly taken care of with a sword to his belly. The two women were dragged away by their hair, shouting and struggling, while soldiers looted the cart. 

Without thinking, Aiden had steered his horse off the road and into the direction of the village. He could hear Lambert call out his name as he galloped over the bloodsoaked fields, but he didn't slow down. 

Close to the turmoil, he jumped of his horse, trusting the stallion to run to safety on his own and to come back when called. 

One soldier cried out startled as Aiden landed in a swift roll that had him on his feet within seconds, his sword already in hand. The man was the first to taste his steel. 

The other had to drop the stolen goods, before fumbling for his own weapon, but he wasn't quick enough to parry the witcher's attack. 

Aiden tried to listen to where the women might have been carried off to, but between the fire's roar and the peasents' wails, it was hard to concentrate. Fresh trails on the ground, however, led him to a small enclosure that used to hold goats, but now was only filled with carcasses. 

The older woman was lying face down in the water through, a monument to the soldiers' capricious cruelty. Knowing that he couldn't help her anymore, Aiden hurried on until he found the two men holding the younger woman down. 

With one swift movement, he pressed his sworblade through the back of the man restraining her, then decapitated the one forcing himself onto her. 

Blood and tears stained her face as she got shakingly to her feet. Recoiling from the witcher's outreached hand, she stumbled back towards her family's house. Though the roof was fully aflame by now, she pushed inside the only place she had known to give her safety all of her life. 

Aiden stared in shock as he watched her walking through the wall of fire that held her home. She panicked when her disarrayed clothes started burning, but instead of fleeing away from the flames, she ran further into the house. 

Before he could decide to help or to leave her, another group of soldiers charged at him, angry about the lost of their brothers in arms. 

He managed to fight of the first wave, but it was obvious that he was outnumbered. They had him cornered, the burning building on one side, the enclosure's fence on the other. 

Another bright light suddenly flickered wildly beside him, before a fully aflame figure stepped into sight. At first, the cat witcher thought it was the young woman, who had come out of her home at last, but too late, to burn to death in what was left of the front yard. The figure, though, wasn't hysterically running around. Their movements were slow and unbothered by the chaos around them and they stopped their light feet next to Aiden, who could feel the heat coming from the dancing flames. 

The soldiers were too busy staring at the newcomer than to continue fighting. With fearful eyes, they reared back when the human fire reached out one blazing arm. One man wasn't as quick as his mates, and the spark immediately jumped over. Within seconds, he was fully engulfed in the flames. He uttered an agonising scream, his arms uselessly waving around as he performed a macabre dance until he finally dropped motionless to the ground. 

The figure touched the enclosure, next, their form shrinking as the fire spread along the wood. It rushed along the fence, then licked at a stack of barrels close to it. 

Aiden had no time to guess what was stored inside of those barrels, before they were already exploding with an ears shattering noise. 

His hands were raised to sign Quen, when the heat of the shock wave already pushed him onto his back. Through the ringing in his ears, he could hear the soldiers scream. His fingers felt stiff and the smell of singed hair stood out to him strangely clear.

Moving on adrenaline and muscle memory, he rolled back to his feet and used the moment's chaos to take off. Dodging debris and panicked people, he ran away from the shambles. 

Lambert found him the next day near the river. The water was soiled and probably infested, but its coolness felt good on Aiden's burned skin as he dipped his hands inside. 

"What were you thinking?" the Wolf gnarled as he cleaned the burns with the clear water from his flask. "You could have gotten yourself killed."

"I thought I could help," Aiden answered in a small voice and Lambert let out a deep sigh. 

"I swear, you are worse than Geralt. There's a reason why witchers don't intervene, it's futile to try to save the world. All you can do is to care for yourself."

Aiden's eyes took in the dark soot covering the other man. He opened his mouth to disagree with Lambert by pointing out the double standard of not carrying about anyone yet still having run after the Cat, when the younger witcher touched his face. 

"Saving people," he huffed, the furrow between his brows deepening. "You couldn't even safe your own eyebrows." 

To his own surprise, Aiden laughed. He laughed until tears streamed down his face. 


	30. Stripes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fun not scary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> October ends when I say it ends!

Lambert's horse was the first thing they noticed. In the morning, the light brown mount had mysteriously gotten dark mud painted in broad stripes all over it. 

"This isn't funny, Aiden!" Lambert groused, scrubbing the brush over the horse's back. "There's no water nearby to clean her and I can't saddle her like this. I'll have to walk to the next town!" 

Aiden, the fucker, was still roaring with laughter. 

"Biscuit looks so exotic, though."

"For the last time, her name is Berserk!" 

Still chuckling over Lambert's outrage, Aiden finally got up from his bedroll and rekindled the fire to prepare breakfast. He pulled out their provisions and frowned at the lightness of the bag. Looking inside, he found half of its contents missing. 

"Lambert, did you eat all the bread?" He gasped loudly. "And my sweet bun?!" 

"I didn't eat your stuff," the other man huffed, then groaned loudly. "Ah shit, is this some pranking? Did we cross a fucking trickster?" 

"I didn't do anything to have provoked one," Aiden objected as he checked their other belongings. 

"Fuck, I might have," Lambert admitted after a moment of thought and let his head drop to his chest. "There was a fox trying to steal the rabbit I had hunted for dinner last night. I kicked it." 

"And in return, Reineke peed into your saddle bag," Aiden informed him, looking inside said bag and grimacing at the smell. 

Stomping over, Lambert saw for himself and gave an angry growl as he pulled out the wet contents. 

"That thrice damned bastard."

His head shot up when a high yapping sound ringed out through the forest. 

A few feet away from their camp, slightly hidden by the bushes, stood the trixter. Hunched on his hindlegs, the small fox was watching them with obvious glee and cackled at their misfortune. 

"Yeah, laugh as long as you can, Reineke," Lambert snarled, already unsheathing his sword. 

Mirroring him, the fox picked up a stick from the ground and wielded it mockingly in his front paw like a kid playing at sword fight. 

"I'll make a nice pair of winter gloves out of you." 

Before the Wolf could move towards his opponent, Aiden stepped into his way. 

"You can't fight him," he urged his partner with a hand on his shoulder. "You know the stories, everyone who tries to kill the trickster is caught in a trap and gets mauled or killed themselves."

The fox barked for their attention and waved a silver necklace around, before putting it on. 

Aiden instinctively raised his hand to his chest, where his cat medallion used to rest. 

"...he didn't," the older witcher breathed with restrained anger. 

"He stole your medallion," Lambert confirmed, smirking now that Aiden was the one pulling out his weapon. "What about you can't fight a trickster?" 

"Now that I think about it, the people in those stories have all been human. Reineke never fought a witcher." 

"Let alone two," Lambert agreed with a cruel grin, then pounced forward. 

The fox gave another high pitched bark, then turned swiftly away and ran off deeper into the forest, the Cat and the Wolf close on his tail. 


	31. Forgotten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> depressed demon stealing happy memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy belated Halloween! I didn't do it on time, but I am still glad that I did it, it was fun and exciting, but also exhausting!   
> Thank you all for your kind comments throughout october, I hope you had a nice creepy month 🍁 now let's break out the fairy lights and holiday spirit

"Can I do anything else for you?" the merchant asked. 

It had started drizzling, of course the man would want to continue with his travel and Lambert didn’t remember if he was in need of - come to think of it, he didn’t even know what the man was selling. Or why Lambert had come here to this crossroad in the first place. His horse and other belongings were still back at the town's inn, there must have been a specific reason why he had seeked out this merchant in the middle of the night. 

Hanging around his neck, his medallion was vibrating wildly and Lambert glanced around and listened closely to find the magical reason for it. His neck pickled with the unknown danger and his body was coiled in anticipation. 

There were fields with high grown crops enclosing the road. Soon, the first harvesting would begin along with the accompanying autumnal celebrations. Small puddles formed slowly on the tramped down ground that was hard as stone after weeks without rain. Behind the merchant was a patch of earth that seemed to have been dug up not long ago, the plants growing close by having been pushed aside carelessly. 

His attention was called back to the merchant as the man spoke up again. 

"Despite my kind's reputation, I don't have time to stand here for all eternity."

Lambert's eyes were drawn to the silver glint of a medallion wrapped in a stained handkerchief in the other man's dirty hand. 

"What's that," he barked more than asked, grabbing the merchant's wrist to have a closer look. 

Though it was a witcher's medallion, it wasn't his own or of anyone he knew. The hissing head of a cat was one he had never seen, but recognized from Kaer Morhen's teachings. 

With surprising strength, the man pulled his arm away from the wolf witcher's grip. 

"This belongs to me now," he roared in a booming voice, spit darting out of his mouth with the force of his words. 

Jumping back into a defensive position, Lambert unsheathed his silver sword. 

Cursing his befuddled mind, he wished he had noticed the fresh earth beneath the merchant's fingernails earlier, then maybe he would have detected the harmless looking man as the reason for his medallion's wild vibrating sooner. 

The dug up earth at the side of the road was a grave without a blessing, a human buried as carelessly as the carcass of an animal, covered with earth more out of need than respect. The man wasn't human anymore, but had become a daemszary, a forlorn soul searching for the happiness that they had never experienced while being alive. They found it in the memories of the living and took it either through deceiving tricks or with force. While they weren't outright dangerous, many distraught people had taken their own live after their encounter with the demon. Having forgotten their very own reason to live was a burden heavy enough to take down the strongest man. 

The demon snarled at the sight of the silver weapon. His eyes turned back in his head until only the white could be seen and he reached his arms over his head while leaning backwards until his hands reached the earth. 

Lambert swung his sword, but before the blade could strike, the daemszary's form had turned to ash and fallen onto the unmarked grave. The increasing rain mixed the grey substance with the dark earth and with an angered cry, the witcher stabbed the ground ineffectively. 

_ Fuck _ , he should have cast Yrden to trap the demon before attacking. Another damn beginner's mistake, how could he act so stupid? The demon must have done something to his head, that much Lambert was sure of. 

Sheating his sword on his back, he started the walk back to the inn. There was nothing he could do without an incantation to force the demon to appear, especially as long as he didn't know what exactly had transpired. 

He could still recall the first time Geralt had called him his brother and sounded like he meant it, not simply had said it because that's what all wolf witchers were calling each other. He also remembered the time he had incidentally met Eskel on the path the first time and they had gone out drinking and whoring together, the older witcher showing a side of himself that he seldom shared while he was sober. That night, Lambert had felt like he could open up, too, without getting judged. The memory of his mother's face as she unwrapped the crudely carved bird he had made for her birthday was still safely stored in his mind, too.

That's as much happiness as his fucked up life as a witcher had to offer and the daemszary hadn't taken those memories away from him. Though something must have happened or he wouldn't feel so out of place in his own thoughts. 

What other happy emory could he have forgotten? 

The demon could never have tricked the wolf witcher while he still had a clear head. He wondered if he had give away those memories by choice. That would raise the question as to what fucked up thing must have happened to him hat he would do that? And finally, did he actually want to know the answer to that? 

Shit, he needed to find out who's medallion that was. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> you can find the original post about cryptober here:  
> https://tricksterdoodles.tumblr.com/post/628193083985707008/i-guess-ill-do-one-of-these-as-well-presenting


End file.
